PRODDY SHEEP AND OTHER THINGS ~ ~ ~

This is the sheep rug that was our project when a group went to England two years ago. Cilla Cameron taught us the proddy portion and Heather Ritchie taught the stone wall background ~ what a challenge that was!! Heather's sample rug was a purple sheep and I latched onto one of the purple wool packets that was offered!! Then we chose 4 or 5 pieces of wool that Heather custom dyed for the stone walls. Kris Miller and I took close-up pix of Heather's stone wall hooking and it definitely helped when I was hooking this back home without her input! Heather had dyed Wensleydale fleece for sale and several packages of that came home with me ~ some purple went in the sheep body and I improvised on the pattern a bit and used the green for grass under the little sheep feet. I also made an attempt at a proddy flower at the end of the grass!! Those rock walls were the hardest thing to hook in such a fashion that it looked like stones ~ Heather lived her lifetime surrounded by all that texture and it was second nature for her but for most of us, it was a struggle! On my England Memory Rug, I prodded a smallish purple sheep into the top right of the rug to commemorate our reason for being in England in the first place.

There is an online rug hooking forum that I frequent and there are several rug hooking challenges that have been set up recently. The one that I joined is Unfinished Objects and you can check it out at http://www.uforughookers.blogspot.com/. So many rug hookers have pieces they've started and get put aside so this is a way to tackle that UFO and be held accountable through the team blog they've set up. It will be fun and productive, for sure! Mine is a rug of my grandchilren's hands that I started two years ago ~ the picture and story about it are on that blog site.

Several weeks ago, I posted about my sister, Joyce, having an embolism and heart attack. I'm happy to report that she is doing well ~ she even went out last week and did her Meals on Wheels route ~ hello !!!! She said her doctor said to do what she felt up to doing and she did!! We're a tough bunch and I know she doesn't want to let this get the best of her ~ I give her a lot of credit for that. She started hooking about the same time I did but hasn't pursued it as much ~ she mentioned that her hooking is shreddy and she doesn't hook fast, etc. I sent her the Hartman Hook this week and am waiting to hear if it's helped! I sell them now, because it made all the difference for me in regard to the ease of hooking with wide cuts! I hope she likes it and it gets her hooking again!

Another weekend is here ~ a new month has started! Does time fly for all of you like it does here? Holy crow ~ it's hard to keep up sometimes!! Take care and have a good weekend!

Alice