RABBIT RUG AND OTHER THINGS ~ ~ ~

 It's been a long time since I've posted ~ just too busy to sit down and write!  The Rabbit Rug is done and sent in the mail and delivered to it's new home!  My friend, Cathy, is the proud grandma of her first grandchild, born in December ~ in her words "I've waited 63 years to be a grandma"!!!!!  I replied "ever since you were born?"!!!  She is beyond excited and I wanted to honor her new little Jacob with something special!  She loved it and took it to the new parents, who appreciated the thought very much!  The rabbit is hooked with camelhair wool from a retired jacket of Sonny's ~ I don't use much recycled wool but this was perfect for a furry little creature!  I mixed hand-dyed and handspun yarn into the background and handspun into the star.  I like the results ~ again, I drew it freehand and it just kind of developed as I hooked along.

The Tipp City rug has been finished for some time, but the bird needed some attention.  I appliqued it onto the foundation fabric and then hooked around it ~ but in doing so, the bird fabric was kind of wrinkly and just didn't lay flat, and the stitching definitely got lost when the hooking was done.  Betty Young, a long-time teacher, was at a hook-in that I attended and suggested that I stuff the bird to fill out those wrinkles and I took her up on it.  I slit the backing ~ stuffed it with only a small amount of fiberfill, stitched it back together and sealed it with white glue and covered the ugly mess I'd made with the label!  I also added a bead for the eye and some beads to the wing.  It looks good and the stuffing made a lot of difference!

 Now, the "Tipp City Bittersweet" resides under "Tom" and they look great together.  I toted that rug all over this house and this seemed to be the right spot.  There are lots of windows in the living room and this rug, apparently, needed all that light to show off the various shades of the background.  When I tried to find a place for it in our bedroom, where the colors looked great, it just had no life to it at all ~ now, it's found it's proper home.

 It was a pretty productive week for me ~ amazing!  Since I was labeling the Rabbit Rug, it was a great time to make labels for some of my other finished pieces.  I've been using a printable fabric that can be run thru the copier and then ironed on to a backing. I hand-wrote several labels onto paper and copied those on to the fabric, pinked the edges, ironed it on felt, pinked the felt edges and then hand-stitched that to the rug.  It gives a more finished look that what I was doing before!  You can buy the printable fabric in office supply stores and probably fabric shops, too.

One other little project I started this week is a heart mat with a variety of reds out of my stash.  It's going to have a really dark background ~ a black and red plaid that is overdyed with black.  I'm headed down to the hooking room now to finish this and START my blog challenge piece!!  A perfect Saturday ~ hooking all day!  Sonny went to a tool show in Columbus and I'm going to be an all day hooker!!!

Ta ta for now!!

Alice

RABBIT RUG & PUDDINGSTONE ~ ~ ~

 Happy hooking ~ that's what I'm doing ~ I'm happy as can be when I have time to hook!  This is a smallish rabbit rug that I drew on linen and as I go, I'm adding bits of handspun green yarn ~ it's wonderful lumpy stuff with lots of texture ~ it kind of livens up the background and is mixed with a green as-is wool and a hand-dyed green, as well.  The rabbit is a 9 cut  and the background, a 9.5 ~ so it's moving pretty fast!!  Should be done in a day or so!

Sonny took this picture a few days ago down in the woods ~ it's a big puddingstone rock covered with snow!  Puddingstone is left from the glacier that was in this area many eons ago ~ it's kind of like the garbage that the glacier left as it moved across the landscape.  If you double click on the photo, you can see all cracks and crevices that were formed.

This is an outcropping of puddingstone  across the way from the one above.  I was actually thrilled because Sonny took these pictures and said he thought I might like them for my blog!!  He doesn't really even read this thing so I was shocked that he wanted to provide subject matter for it!  These are two of the biggest examples on our property but there are other smaller ones here and there.  We love it ~ we don't really know of anyone else around us  who has this and we enjoy telling people about it.  A retired geologist, who was a guest here quite a few years ago, enlightened us as to what these really are! 

I'm kind of excited today because I just made plans to attend a hook-in Sarasota while we're there in February.  Searsport Rug Hooking is hosting their first annual hook-in with several vendors that I haven't seen before and it will be a chance to network with different  rug hookers.  A new friend, MJ, who took a class here this fall, invited me to join her and it coincides with our visit, so, finally, I made the decision to go.  The hardest part will be missing out on being with Sonny and our friends for the day ~ I told them to not plan anything fun until I get back!! 

We had a fun weekend ~ Sonny boy turned 67 on Saturday and we went to dinner with friends and intended to stay and listen to a band from Put-in-Bay that was playing there.  But ~ my son and his wife and other friends were at the new wine bar in our little burg and called and texted and called some more until we finally went to join them!  It was great fun!  We knew almost everybody there and a good time was had by all!  We went out with other friends on Friday night and ran into Sonny's daughter ~ she secretly told the waitress that she wanted to buy the bottle of wine that was on our table ~ which was great ~ except it wasn't our wine!!!  Our friends were surprised and so was Sonny's daughter, the next day!!  Oh, well ~ her intentions were good!!  And our friends enjoyed it immensely!!

That's it for today ~ I'm working on tax things and other fun stuff ~ have to head to the office supply store shortly!  The second new dishwasher arrived a while ago and Sonny was here to check it out ~ so by tonite, my dishpan hands can take a break ~ maybe! Thanks for stopping by ~ hope all is well in your world!

RABBIT RUG FINALE ~ ~ ~

Finally!  Mr. Rabbit rug is all done!  I took him to the lake this weekend for Easter, got the binding done and voila!  I didn't re-do his tail ~ he's going to live in our bedroom ~ he'll only be seen by two people~
and besides, that ~ I don't like to reverse hook! I think he'll be very happy there!

This is Mr. Rabbit's new home ~ in front of two comfy chairs that we almost never sit in!  I really hooked it for my side of the bed, so that when I wake up, I have a nice soft rug for my tootsies to land on!  For the rug hookers who are reading, I hook high and with a wide cut. Rugs hooked high and wide, especially for the floor, have a lot of substance to them ~ very soft and cushy ~ this rug has lots of substance!

This photo shows a couple of elements  in the room that made me think Mr. Rabbit could be at home here.  The rabbit pattern is drawn by Margaret Shaw, a painter ~ she also is the artist who painted the cat at the left of this picture.  And the wooden folk art rabbit that perches on top of the cabinet, just told me that the rug belonged in here!  I love M. Shaw's work (she also goes by that) and her rug  hooking patterns are hard to find.  She usually is at the summer show at Quailcrest Herb Farm north of Wooster in  June ~ I'm going to try to get there and see what she has to offer. 

Easter weekend was pretty quiet for us, except on Friday night ~ we went to dinner with friends, Kathy and Jim and then we danced the night away to The Traveling Lounge Lizards!!  Don't you just love that name?  They play music that appeals to people of our age and the guys that play are our age ~ Sonny and I left sometime after midnight ~ the next day we took a walk and watched TV movies and slept the day away!!  Party animals ~ that's us!  On Sunday, Sonny, Tad and I went to dinner and then headed back to our home.  Sonny has been working so hard on this rehab house besides his job ~ I think we just needed some r-and-r ~ now we're back in the swing of things!!

Things are greening up ~ daffodils are blooming ~ and the yard work awaits!! I went out for a while yesterday and cut back all the grasses and raked leaves ~ it'll take me a month of Sundays to get done all there is out there!  And I have a show to prepare for ~ and a rug trip coming up ~ and a trip to Seattle ~ all before the end of the month!!  Hang on ~ it's gonna be a bumpy ride!!

Have a great day and enjoy your journey!!

Alice

RABBIT RUG PROGRESS ~ ~ ~

Yes, progress has been made! I was able to hook a couple of days last week and yesterday, Luke came over and I got a lot done while he was hooking on his new project! One nice evening of hooking should find this rug ready to be bound! Of course, that stark white tail might have to go and I see a couple of other places that need tweaked ~ we'll see!

If you remember a post from a while ago, I mentioned that I gave Luke's star hooking to Seattle grandson, Hunter, to finish and I said when Luke found out, there would some 'splainin' to do! The other day I received an email from 10 year old Luke, entitled "Splainin Time"!!! I explained why I did that and told him I would draw him a new pattern ~ maybe a dog! ~ and he liked that idea a lot! He's been over twice to work on his new project and it's coming along nicely! Grandma redeemed herself!!!!!!

In response to my last post, Lauren asked to see the wool used to hook this huge rabbit! Here it is ~ I love this fabric ~ it has a lot of texture and gives lots of movement without incorporating another wool into the mix. It's kind of a chenille type and I don't believe it's 100% wool ~ but it hooks up really well!! And another question from Lauren regarding the outlining ~ I outlined after all was hooked ~ since it was a very soft yarn, I was able to squeeze in the hooking between the hooked rows ~ you could do this, too, if you're using a really narrow cut of wool to outline. I really appreciate all the comments on this rug ~ Thanks everybody!!

We had a fun weekend ~ Friday night went to the first Friday party at Arts on Main ~ they were celebrating their 10 year anniversary ~ it's a local artists cooperative that is now associated with the Mansfield Art Center. It was well attended and we ran into a lot of people we know ~ I love hanging around artists! One fellow, Tim Gorka, became my new Facebook friend and enlightened me with the info that I could 'hide' all that Farmville, Fishville stuff that shows up on my page!! I find all that distracting and I know that people who use those applications find it very entertaining! So they're happy and I'm happy! There is another little gallery that recently opened in that area and we stopped in for the first time ~ clients from Richland Newhope ~ the program my son, Tad, attended for many years ~ displaying and selling their art! Photos and paintings and great pottery totems that, hopefully, they are going to sell in the future! We made a couple of other stops before having a late supper at one of our favorite haunts!

Saturday, we went to Columbus to the Home and Garden show, visited a customer to consult about a new master bath project (yippee!) and had a wonderful late lunch at Beni Hana!! Was that ever yummy! We had several appetizers and bananas tempura with green tea ice cream for dessert!! And a wonderful pomegranate martini!

Yesterday, Luke came to hook and we exercised together! Last night before the Oscars ~ that was fun to watch! ~ we had a great dinner of salmon (Sonny's recipe), sauteed mushrooms with bleu cheese and bacon, and fresh mozzarella, tomato, basil salad with balsamic vinegar and rosemary infused olive oil for the dressing! Our own little gourmet meal ~ it really was scrumptious!!

Today, I'm picking up a couple of friends and we're driving to Easton in Columbus to meet our friend, Cathy for some shopping and lunch! This is our trip we had to cancel the other week because of snow ~ today the sun will shine and it should be in the high 40's (it was 60 deg. in Columbus today!!)!!!!!! Just like spring to us Ohio girls!!! Well, we're not exactly girls but you get my drift!!! Have a good day!

RABBIT RUG ~ ~ ~

This is an M. Shaw pattern that I started last fall ~ it's for our lake condo ~ I have an M. Shaw painting of a cat in our bedroom and also a white folk art rabbit ~ somehow this just seemed to fit ~ in my mind!

As you can see, I outlined the green stems and leaves (with a nice purple yarn I bought at a yard sale for 50 cents!) because the greens I picked for the background and the leaves were way too similar! Color planning is a challenge for me and so is reverse hooking ~ that wasn't going to happen so outlining to set them apart seemed like a good alternative!

The flowers are several purples including a nice old paisley. As I look thru the camera's eye, it appears the tail is pretty stark white in comparison ~ I wanted a white fuzzy cottontail but it may have to come out ~ I'll see when the rug is finished. All in all, I'm pretty happy with the results so far ~ I'll keep you posted!

Quiet weekend for us ~ went out to dinner with friends on Friday night in a snowstorm, by the way ~ stayed in all day Saturday and hooked! Sunday we had the pleasure of shopping for carpet and other floor coverings for a rental we're rehabbing ~ a story all in itself ~ for another time! Then a stop at Barnes and Noble to look thru magazines and books ~ we love to do that! We came home and raided the fridge ~ a little this ~ a little that ~ and called it supper!

Today I'm dyeing antique blacks! I hope I come up with some things that work! A couple of gals are coming later today just for that and I want there to be several things to choose from! That's the way I operate of course ~ flying by the seat of my pants ~ at the last minute ~ it works for me ~ somehow!!!!!!! I'll take pictures if they're noteworthy ~ I sure hope so!!

Talk to you later ~ and thanks for stopping by! I mean that so sincerely ~ it's amazing to me that over the weekend, the hit counter went over 40,000 ~ since being installed January of '09. I love knowing that there are people out there interested in what I have to say ~ and when you comment, I'm very interested in what you're saying back to me!! Have a good day wherever in this world you are!!!!!
Alice