A Tale of Two Whale Tails

This May, I finished my whale rug, Windrose Whale that I had blogged about in April. It was a delightful pattern to hook, and I’m excited to offer it at my ETSY shop. As I said before, the whale with the compass rose, floating roses and arching branches was a fun rug to create.

I had barely finished hooking Windrose Whale, when I got the idea to make another whale rug. I was curious. What if I used the exact SAME whale, but changed everything else. Could I create a totally different feel to this new rug.

That is how, Find Your Anchor, came to be. The whale is the same shape, but the color and hooking technique are different. This whale is hooked with darker wool, greens, blacks, browns and has a few directional lines running across his middle.

I was intrigued with the idea of making a very primitive hit-and-miss style background. The whale is a dark neutral, so there were a lot of color choices available for background colors. I am a sucker for using reds and greens, complimentary colors, with a wide range of neutrals. The more neutrals you use, in similar range of value to your colors, the murkier or softer the rug will be. The greens ranged from olive to khakis, the reds were red orange, maroon, with paisleys and textures to add more interest. The neutrals in the background are beige, dulled oatmeal, taupe and camel.

The whale was the central motif, but somehow the idea of an anchor within the design became just as important as the whale, and then, adding words seemed like a fun way to create balance to the piece and the hearts spouting from the blowhole helped to convey a heartfelt message….Find YOUR Anchor!

The red hearts originate at the whale’s blowhole and expand as they float with the current of the background. It was exciting to use the strong intense reds within the hearts, because the rest of the rug had limited hints of reds, so that the red would not take over the whole rug.

Finally, the anchor and lettering, used similar strong dark colors as in the whale to tie those central motifs to the rest of the rug!

I did a tunneling sort of outline around the whale and hearts and just a bit of the anchor with a narrow cut of the grayed oatmeal color. I liked how it made those motifs stand out more, and added a bit of quirkiness to the rug.

In the end, I am very pleased with both whale rugs, and really cannot choose which is my favorite. So perhaps you will decide to hook a whale with a compass rose to guide you, or a whale with an anchor to help ground you. Then that will become your own story of the Tale of Two Whale Tails!

Windrose Whale and Find Your Anchor are both available at my ETSY shop. Thank you!