Birds of a Feather

Spring seems like the perfect time to reflect on using bird motifs in your rugs.

After all, here in Oregon, the swallows and buzzards have returned quite awhile ago. Now, when you step outdoors the flurry of songbirds singing and flying about, certainly catch your attention!

I have hooked many birds into my rugs from swans and geese, roosters and chickens to ravens and crows. Along with quails, hummingbirds, swallows and songbirds and more. Heck, I have even hooked a peacock!

Above Photo: Sanctuary: Raven or Crow peering from tree

Above Photo: Intrepid Souls: Hummingbird searching for blossoms

I like how adding a bird to a rug can add interest and charm. It can be part of the composition or a focal point. Many of my rugs tell stories. In River & Raven's Roost, (topmost photo) it was the raspy call of the raven that inspired part of this rug. In Dove's Song, it was a mourning dove's meditative cooing that mesmerized me as I stood in my garden. In Rose Wreath, (photo below) the flowers are the focal point, but the birds hidden within the wreath add a lot of sweetness to the piece.

Whether you design your own rugs, or purchase rugs made by other designers, consider hooking a rug with a bird motif in it. I am sure you will enjoy the process and love the outcome!

Please visit my ETSY shop and view my patterns, there are more patterns of mine with birds, too many to post.

Administrative FYI:Beginning in May and thoughout the summer months, I will be blogging only once a month. With the onset of warmer weather I will be outside doing more gardening, trips to the coast, and family visits. I do hope to get some hooking done too. I will keep you posted! Thank you, marijo

 

Flying Flying Fox

This design, Flying Flying Fox, was inspired by an antique hooked rug's background that I admired. I loved the way the background colors flowed using a tight range of values, in warm and cool colors. This is not a case where you put all the wool strips in a bag, to then pull out any ole color and use in any area you are working on. I was surprised at how much thinking and scrutinizing went into the placement of each strip to create this unique look. Again, it was a good reminder, that primitive hooking does NOT mean simpler hooking, far from it!

I'm currently reexploring, my fox phase! I hooked my first fox rug, Cozy Fox, in the spring of 2014. When I blogged about that rug in the spring of 2015, a friend then told me of an amazing experience that she had with a gray fox, (I will blog about that soon with a rug to match). As I was designing that more folk-art style gray fox rug, I asked myself, why don't I design a more traditional primitive rug also, since I adore that style too, and so primitive Flying Flying Fox design was born.

I love this happy little self-assured fox. There is just enough color and texture differentiation in him to add interest to his "black" silhouette. The antique blacks are in the blue-black, purple and brown range of color, which perfectly compliment the warm-orangey background colors!

The background is hooked in light to medium colors of warm peach, tan, tawny and camel tones. The interest is added with the usage of cooler similar value grays that lean toward blues and mellow soft purples. I had to use a lot of different wools, and different directional hooking techniques so it would be interesting and not just a "blob" of color. I definitely want to explore this technique further. I was humbled by how tricky it was to achieve this "aged" look.

The suggestion of the flowers, or dandelions gone-to-seed are intended to fade into the background. It was a fun experiment to use a neutral light wool for the flowers, whereas normally, I use all sorts of color and values to define a flower from the background. A narrow strip of a slightly brighter color, is randomly "tunneled" around the edge of the flowers to softly define them.

As you know, I usually bind my rugs with a crocheted edge. This time, I wanted the binding to look rustic. So,I bound this design with 1/2" torn strips wrapped around cotton cording.

This carefree, bounding fox is soaring through a field of dandelions gone-to-seed. As he passes, the little white "parachutes" are sure to go flying, flying in all directions! I like to think he is inviting you to happily join him, to make a wish, and blow!

Please visit my ETSY shop to see Flying Flying Fox and other hooking related items.

 

Travel Postcard: A Dove in Flight

As the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words!

A Dove in Flight was a rug I finished hooking this past January and blogged about in-length, in a post on January 27, 2016.

Earlier this month I was fortunate enough to see the "dove rug" in it's new home!

Currently it is on the floor, though it might be mounted later as a wall hanging.

Picture Perfect!

 

New Lease on Life

I am a consummate thrifter! I come from a long line of folks who value the idea of the reuse, recycle mentality. That can be anything from simply reusing your plastic lunch bags, to the finer art of veering off the beaten path to stop at garage sales and thrift shops to find and appreciate items from days gone by.

So, it should be of no surprise that when I saw this DiFranza Rug Hooking Kit at one of my local antique and collectible shops, I could not pass it by. It did not matter, that it had wool strips that were probably a very narrow cut (3) which I had no intention of using, though the wool was in excellent condition! It did not matter that the pattern was printed on burlap, which I personally would never hook on, due to longevity issues. It did not matter that the little hooks were so small, probably a "fine", that I could barely see the bend on the ends. What did matter, was that "someone" had bought this kit, with the full intention and dream of hooking it into a lovely mat, and that intention needed to be honored!

Within a month's time of purchasing the kit, I had a Hook-In, where I would attend as a vendor. Nobody there seemed interested in the kit, however, the Region 11 president of ATHA (Association of Traditional Rug Hooking Artists) was there, and suggested I might donate the kit to their scholarship program. That was an excellent suggestion! Everyone wins!

The kit would go to someone who wants to hook it and would value the whole kit and caboodle! The ATHA organization would benefit, and as I understand it, their scholarship for this particular camp was not on a need basis, but on a basis of someone applying because they want to further their rug hooking education and ability. Finally, I won because this kit assembled long ago and purchase by a hooker with a dream would finally be going to a good home!

I sure hope I get a chance to see this kit completed at some future Hook-In. Now that would be a dream come true!

 

Spring Renewal

It is officially spring!

The days are getting longer, the wet spring days do give way to sunny ones. The beautiful flowering trees have chirping birds flying from branch to branch. The first wave of early spring bulbs like daffodils and crocus are giving way to tulips, hyacinths, muscari and iris.

I find myself wondering about all the new babies born or hatched in this season like, kittens, lambs, bunnies, and birds. Yay for Nature!

I hope you are feeling renewed, inspired and creative in this season of rebirth!

Happy Spring!

 

Oval Squirrel

Maybe I AM still feeling a bit squirrelly! But I am in good company! (To follow, is a showcase of Oval Squirrel, hooked by three talented rug hookers.)

I hooked my Oval Squirrel mat two years ago. I had designed All Seasons Squirrel, the larger rug, but had not hooked it yet. I needed a small gift, so I used some of the elements from the larger design to make this one.

Oval Squirrel is approx 9" x 11" and now available as an instant download PDF pattern in my ETSY shop. I also provide a 6" version of this pattern for punch needle work. When you use a paper pattern, you get to be the co-designer, and choose to use elements as originally designed, or change elements to fit your needs.

This photo shows Oval Squirrel hooked by Patty Rogers.

Patty hooked this mat for her sweet niece, whose nickname is Squirrel. The muted gray, green, and soft blues in the main background work well as compliment colors, to make those orangey-red flowers pop! All the elements in the motif shapes show up nice and crisp because she has used the lighter value background within those shapes, rather than the medium value like I did. Binding with red wool strips completes the magic!

Marie Beers, had a clever idea to make the pattern into a circular chair pad.

When Marie traced the design elements onto linen, she made the oval, a circle, and spread the little mosaic shapes out so that they worked well within that round format. Using textured wool for a background is a great way to make all the elements of the design pull together, and here is why. The textured background that she used, when the light hits it, looks green with lighter flecks of blues or gold which helps pull all the other colors together. Those other colors that she used to outline the mosaics, the hooked line that encircles the mat, or the lighter values of the mosaic shape background all make a unified statement with the help of that textured background. Notice the crocheted edging also picks up the green and light blue colors used throughout the rug. By crocheting a border, she is a girl after my own heart! It looks great and will be very durable as a chair seat edge. A funny aside, her husband does NOT like squirrels, they cause havoc in his yard, so it will be his chair pad!

Maureen Lowrey hooked her Oval Squirrel mat in 8, 7, and 6 cut strips with her beautiful trademark primitive colors!

Maureen had recently moved from the country to the city, and wanted to celebrate the red squirrels that were busy in her yard. (Her squirrels are so bold that they even climbed up onto her front door to help themselves to the fake berries on a seasonal wreath.) Her use of twine and acorn that hang on the mat complete the primitive ambience emulating from this happy squirrel!

Thank you ladies for sharing your beautiful, unique and fun mats! As you can see, squirrels are not just for fall! Please consider joining us in the movement to have squirrels as part of your year round decor. This little mat hooked with other shades of squirrel colors such as, white, gray, or black would be cute. There are over 200 species of squirrels, so you have lots of color choices!

Here is the quick link to my ETSY shop.

Happy Hooking!

 

All Seasons Squirrel

I designed All Seasons Squirrel a couple of years ago, and finally started hooking on it this past summer. I didn't realize it would take me almost ALL of the Seasons to finish, once I started hooking!

The inspiration for the design came about as I was wondering why folks seem to decorate all sorts of squirrel related decor in the autumn, but not other times of the year. I can tell you one thing for sure, I have squirrels busy in my yard all seasons, not just one.

Yes, yes, in the fall they are especially busy hiding acorns. But they are also visiting my garden daily throughout the year. During winter, they seem even more adept at finding ways to raid the bird feeders. I have watched them straddle rose bushes to pick rose hips to nibble on. I gotta admit they look cute when they do that. In the spring, I have caught them picking the buds on my beloved magnolia tree and taking bites out of them. In the summer months, they are busy eating fruit or helping themselves to yet unripe filberts.

Color planning for this rug was easy, or so I thought!

I knew I wanted the squirrels to be a gray tone. I had just figured out a dye formula that had a gray-green cast to it. I liked how soft the color was, and what a chameleon it could be. If placed with taupe or light brown it looked gray, if used next to greens it looked greenish.

I wanted the background light in value, with different directional hooking techniques, and just a hint of medium value strips here and there to suggest movement, but not to overtake the background.

The mosaic pathway that flows across the rug represents all of the squirrel's different food choices in my garden and the many colors of the seasons. I knew that the background inside the little mosaic-like shapes that run across the pattern, would need to be a medium value. (It was important to make the background within the mosaics a different value, than the main background, because otherwise, your eyes could get confused about where to focus.) I know medium backgrounds can make it more challenging to figure out how to make the motifs show up. I was fine with the idea of using a pop-out line, around those motifs to make them stand out.

I am so pleased to finally have this finished mat on my dining room table rather than on my hooking frame. Real life squirrels are such characters, and this rug catches their fun-loving spirit perfectly! I smile every time I look at it.

All Seasons Squirrel and other hooking related items can be found on my ETSY.

Happy Hooking!