Use and Abuse of Hand Hooked Rug

I use my hand hooked rugs as rugs. It is remarkable how well they hold up. Wool is one of the very best fibers for rugs. It does not accumulate dirt and because I hook on rug warp, my rugs can take what my animals dish out. Watch the movie below to see what I mean.




Luckily, Jack has never damaged shoes. He prefers the shoe laces, but leaves the shoes alone. When he gets excited,

Day 442 Center DONE. . . well, almost

I "finished" the center this morning. It is not not completely done because I need to check for holidays. This means that I will inspect the back of the rug and look for larger than normal spaces where I did not hook. They are easy to see on the back but impossible to see on the front.Some of the early books I read suggested using toothpicks to mark the holes. I found that technique almost

Day 425 Thanksgiving weekend, some progress

The dog on the rug is my son's dog, Mickey. They were visiting over the holiday. Bob and his girlfriend, Amanda, live in NYC. It was great to see them. Since I was showing off the rug it was a good time to take a picture.It has been over a month since my last post. I thought I would be able to show you a finished center after just one full week. I was only able to squeeze out a few days so

Day 372 Rug Hooking Progress and Jack

I've been home a little over a week and I am back at the rug hooking frame. I am concentrating on hooking the center of the rug. As soon as I have it completed, I will check for holidays. What this means is that I examine the back of the rug and look for large blank spaces. I will then mark these spaces with a piece of junk (acrylic) yarn because it is cheap and a plastic canvas needle

Back on the border of the room-sized rug

I am still in the middle of rug camp season. A trip to Sauder Village next week, a family reunion and Cape May in September will wind up the season. In the meantime, I had a tiny bit of downtime this week so I worked some more on the circle border. I reread my January 7 post where I first introduced the circle border. Why did I say that I ruled out an all black background? Hmmmm.....Several

Thanks for voting

The contest ended Easter morning and Amanda did not win. The winner was chosen by a panel of judges. She did have the most votes, so thank you to everyone who took the time to vote. Tomorrow is a big dyeing day. My granddaughter, Alaina, is staying with me for a few days and we will be dyeing up a storm. We started folding and organizing wool in the studio tonight. She wore me out. She

Day 99. I am settled into the circle border with one exception. Do I want to hook multi-colored spots in between the circles, or do I want to keep that feature consistent? I have already ruled out hooking all the background black. I like the way the extra spots almost camouflage the circles. Hooking an all black background made the circles stand out too much.As you can see I started on the

How easily we forget!

My focus for the last two years has been to "get crooked." I thought I had made a breakthrough with Karen Kahle at Sauder Village in 2006. I was working on her Antique Rose Runner during the lunch break. All the other students were off eating and I was so excited about what and how I was hooking that I decided to work through lunch.A woman came into the classroom to see what we were

Border progress-Cat's paw

I have always loved the Cat's Paw rugs. I wanted to include this design in one of the minor borders, but I was afraid that it would look too modern. I decided to hook up a section. It looks great. Do you agree? I decided to make the background the darkest background value that I am using to outline the motifs in the center of the rug.This test proves that what looks bad (or good) on paper

Day 94 Finally got to hook!

I finally got to hook New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. My husband, David, and I rented videos and stayed indoors. --It's cold out there! Especially after my days in the Florida keys.

Day 65 Rug Hooking Progress

I had more done than I thought when I reviewed my last entry so here's another picture. I'm beginning to think the hit and miss is too large. If I make it smaller, I will have to add additional borders to keep the finished size. I need to start thinking about this now because the worse thing that can happen is that I finish hooking the entire inside area and I don't have a clue what I want to

Day 050 Rug hooking all weekend

This weekend my husband and I rented videos and stayed home. I was able to hook for hours and hours. I got a lot done, but I am determined to get to the half-way point (of the center) before I take it off the frame.The rug is now large enough to drape on the ground as I hook. The cats, Georgia and Gracie, now have enough room to share. Georgia is almost two years old and was a good companion

Day 44 Georgia loves my hooked rugs

Here's a full shot of the progress on the rug. Whenever it is on the floor, the cats are willing to keep it company.

Day 44 of rug hooking: Rose improvement

Rose - beforeI did not want to hook the rose the same way I hooked in the stair riser, Queen Anne Rose. I did hook it differently, but I did not like it at all. I let it go and continued to hook. I hooked another one with more pronounced lights and darks, but it still did not work. Once I had a quarter of the center of the rug finished, I realized the problem was that the rose was too

Day 38 of rug hooking: Resolving the Large Leaves

The large leaf motif is one that I have not hooked in my study pieces so this was new territory. I hooked the two shown first. I added two different wools around the veins just to break up the area. The fill area of the leaf was so large. I did not like either solution.Next I hooked the veins with the vein color only, no secondary color. The vein was a bit harsh. Then I decided to try just

Day 36 My temporary rug hooking set up

I actually rearranged this corner of the living room. This way I can hook whenever I have a few spare moments. They really add up. The wire shelving is the same shelving I use in the studio. It can be set up and torn down in just moments. See my website for more details. Click on the rug eSchool and take a look at the pictorial tour of my studio. They are old pictures. I have actually added

Day 35 Still rug hooking the scrolls

The design of this scroll is based on the porch supports at the Chalfonte Hotel in Cape May, NJ. I fell in love with this hotel and the area the first year I taught at the Rugs by the Sea rug camp. It is held every year in September. There are two weeks of instruction offered. See the teaching schedule on my website for more information on this camp and others.I started the hit and miss that

Day 22 Rug hooking the scrolls

I really like to hook the scroll. I am using two rows of random golds filled with my favorite gold/green combination. A darker vein down the center gives some definition. I am still experimenting with which wool to use for the vein.

Day 10 Rug Hooking Progress

I began hooking the scroll.

Day 7 Rug Hooking the rose

I am not happy with the rose. I will try to hook it another way when I do another. For now, it will stay as it is. If I rip it out now, I will not have a record of what DOES NOT work. Knowing what does not work is often as important to know as what does work.