TIPP CITY CLASS ~ ~ ~

Last Thursday, Heidi and I traveled south in Ohio to a place we'd never been before ~ Tipp City or as it once was called Tippecanoe! A quaint little town with lots of antique shops and good places to eat ~ we dined on the rooftop patio of the Coldwater Cafe ~ yummy!!  And we had a charming waiter who got a kick out of the hookers ~ a new one for him!

This is the rug that I started there and have worked on a little since I've been home.  We were given a blank piece of linen with a 14 x 20 square drawn on, a package of paper patterns having to do with fall, a few pieces of wool and a marker ~ and instructed to design a pattern!!!  Hm ~ not so much my cup of tea but ~ it all worked out and some really nice designs came out of it!  Karen Kahle, Alice Strebel and Nola Heidbreder team taught and provided lots of their wool and patterns for purchase and lots of ideas.  They brought samples of their rug hooking and design work and taught little tricks of the trade along the way.  My personal mission was to learn the blending technique that Karen Kahle is known for to create my background ~ and in my bittersweet berries, too, apparently!  I don't  know much about values and with a little tutorial from Karen and help in choosing 4 pieces of wool with the same 'values', off I went! I'm thinking the result is not too bad ~ it has kind of a painterly quality ~ to my eye, anyway! I do have a purple crow that I appliqued with ribbon to the top branch but they were offering many other variety of things to do to enhance our rugs ~ needlefelting, quilling, proddy ~ things I already do ~ I really wanted to learn Karen's way of using many wools to paint a picture, so I focused on that!  I'll keep you posted on the progress!!

There was an optional evening class of purse embellishment that I talked Heidi and several other girls into taking with me!  It was a challenge to say the least and the results were okay!  We were given a lime green felted round purse, a brown work glove (new), roving, ribbons, buttons, wool ~ whatever we wanted to enhance our bag.  Each teacher had done their own example ~ they were cute but ~ it was a brain teaser to make something out of those things!  Mine is on the far right ~ I did a hand with orange roving fingernails (mine are always orange ~ never roving) with a boucle yarn that I took along, stitched around the hand and the bag.  I found a pin in the button bucket and attached that to the brown glove ~ I'll use it for hooks and scissors!!!!! It's not great but I made an attempt ~ some of my dear friends went home with a green bag and a brown glove ~ I told them to thank me!!

These are some of my dear friends from Mt. Gilead area ~ Pam, Charisse, and Sue ~ we had fun at dinner and they're just like 3 peas in a pod!!

This is Jackie, our table mate from Pittsburgh ~ a long way to go for a class!  Heidi and I were very lucky to be only two hours away and the same with Sauder, it's very close at hand for us!!  

There are gals who came from Houston, St. Louis, Memphis, Gulfport, Indianapolis ~ far far away!!  Those are true hookers ~ will travel for wool!! 

Jackie brought her nice turkey rug for show and tell ~ his tail was great big loops ~ he looked good ~ good enough to eat!! 

Here's another Ohio group ~ another 3 peas-in-a- pod group!! Heidi is standing and admiring the work of Bev, Jo and dear Evelyn, who is working diligently on her rug!!  We met last year in our class at Sauder Village ~ really nice gals who are lots of fun, too!

Last but not least, my friend, Heidi working on her class design ~ a nice oak leaf tree in the middle and mirror images of squirrels and acorns incorporated into the date 2010.  Heidi's hooking is very neat ~ it will look great!  She used a really nubby yarn for squirrelly's tale ~ he's an eyecatcher, for sure!  Heidi and I drove to the lake direct from class ~ there was much fun to be had up there this weekend and we didn't want to miss it! Sonny and I had a winefest to attend on Put-in-Bay Saturday ~ it was soggy but fun!

One of the benefits of this class was the opportunity to get instruction from three very well-known rug hooking teachers in one spot and that spot close to our homes.  They're all very creative in their own way and very generous in sharing what they know!  Another bonus was to meet such great gals ~ all of us different ~ all creative ~ and very fun!  I hope our paths cross again sometime!  Many brought rugs and projects to show ~ that will be the next post!  Have a good weekend everybody!  I'm off to take Tad to the dentist ~ woo hoo!!!!!
Alice