WESTERN RESERVE GUILD HOOK-IN ~ ~ ~

Last Saturday, we were vendors at the hook-in sponsored by the Western Reserve Rug Hooking Guild.  It took place at Lake Farm Park with 125 women registered and what a fun group they were!! As the room filled up, the sound of chatter and laughter increased as well ~ pretty funny when you're on the sidelines!! There were wonderful door prizes ~ 25 hooked round mats and probably that many lavender plants to be given randomly throughout the day!  The mats were hooked by various members ~ a very generous door prize donation!!  There was also a fundraising raffle of two hooked rugs and a huge hooked stocking!  I am a member of this guild but not a very active one and I just admire all the effort put into planning a wonderful, fun-filled day for rug hookers from several different states!!  Linda Gustafson was the chairman and she and her committee did a bang up job!!!!!!

This was my booth later in the day ~ things moved and shuffled and I love it, of course!! We sold wool, and patterns and frames and hooks and books ~ it was a great day!  They serve wonderful treats in the morning and a great lunch at noon and had a huge Chinese auction with around 60 prizes!  That's amazing!  My donation was one of my beach glass bracelets with a piece of watery hand-dyed wool to go with it!  Actually, the truck was packed Friday night when I remembered that I needed a donation!  If you follow this blog or know me, you know that's when I can really get into gear ~ with a deadline looming large in front of me!  So, about 10:30 Friday night, I got the bracelet blank, jewelry glue and my beach glass stash out and a bracelet was made!  Susanne Woodbury was the winner and she seemed pretty pleased!!  I'm working with Susanne to set up a finishing class for the guild in November so we already knew each other ~ nice for a friend to win!!

The creator of this wonderful felted rope yarn is Marianna Halassy and her table was next to mine ~ so we had an opportunity to get acquainted! She's a love Hungarian lady with the cutest accent ~ I liked her a lot! This is some of the most unusual fiber I've seen ~ felted hand-dyed roving made into a thick rope-like yarn ~ gorgeous!! She also had blue Leicester fleece and a lighter-weight yarn as well.  You can find Marianna at www.etsy.com/shop/Marianna98 ~ great stuff!!

Sue Clark, who is a gal I've seen a lot at hooking events, but only met last year, was working on this creative piece.  All kinds of different stitches along with hooking and she is hiding behind it!  I'd been looking at it all day ~ a really showy rug!!

 This rug was close to my booth and is just so eye-catching to me!  Lots of great detail and her hooking was superb!!  And I can't remember the artist's name ~ if anyone knows, tell me and I'll put it right here!! Fritz Mitnick emailed me that Patty Woehler is the hooker of Deanne Fitzpatrick's pattern. It is Patty and three good friends (Patty emailed and said there are FOUR good friends ~ guess Fritz nor I can count!) and Fritz says they each get to display it in their home for a while and then pass it on! What a great gift!

These refreshing Cajun lemonade martinis were waiting for us at the end of our day, at my Great Niece Hilary's house on the other side of Cleveland!!  Woo Hoo!! She and her sister Amy, read on my blog that we would be in their area and quickly called and invited us to hang out with them and their husbands for the evening!  I was impressed on two levels ~ first, that they wanted to hang out with us and second ~ they actually read my blog!!!!!!!  Their mom is my niece, Cheri, and she drove up for the festivities ~ we went to two fun places and at 11 p.m. I had to cry uncle!!  We had been up since 5 a.m., driven almost two hours, set up and did the show, tear down the booth and then partied like rock stars all evening!!  This old girl was 'stick a fork in me ~ I'm done'!!!!!  We had the best time and Hilary treated us to a lovely homemade breakfast complete with mimosas and we were back home by noon on Sunday!!!  Whew!  Great fun!  Thanks, Hilary and Steve and Amy and Dan and Cheri!!

Today is office work and DWTS tonite!!  Sometime, I have to put the hooking room back together, too!  Hope you all had a great weekend and Mother's Day ~ DIL Cheryl, stopped by with chocolate covered strawberries and Ted and family brought a beautiful rose bush ~ this will be my first attempt at growing roses!!  There were phone calls and texts throughout the day!  Enjoy your week!!  It's cold here ~ 52 deg. right now!!! 

Ta ta
Alice