January projects

I grew up in Southern California and there really wasn't any time of year when you couldn't be outside.  Living here in northeastern Ohio, there are days in January and February (and last November!) when it is simply too cold to do much outside except bundle up and walk the dogs as quickly as you can.  Lucky for me I have lots of indoor hobbies.  Here are a few of the projects I currently have going.

First up is an homage to Sophie Digard.  Her scarves and bags and work in general are a major inspiration for me.  I simply can't imagine doing crochet on such a tiny scale.  This past fall, after the Ladies Night at my boys' school (where I sold a TON of gloves and scarves) I splurged on this scarf.  This is classic Sophie Digard.  Tiny, tiny granny squares embellished with bits of velvet.  Stunning, isn't it?  I love it and it matches about 85% of my wardrobe, no joke.

So, in my lame attempt to flatter by imitation, I am crocheting a scarf.  Y'all know I'm a knitter.  Any crochet expert would cringe at my work on this but I'm persevering.  The yarn is Purl Soho line weight merino wool in a beautiful grey/blue.  Very thin.  If I was on knitting needles, I'd be on a size 4 probably.  The plan is to complete the scarf and then appliqué circles of velvet on top at each end.  I bought some velvet swatches on line which should get me plenty of circles for the appliqué.

 The work is pretty slow going because I'm just not as comfortable with crochet so I stop every row to count and make sure I've still got the right number of squares in the pattern.  I've had to rip a bit out when I got off pattern.  (sigh)

The velvets are pumpkin, eggplant, green, and ivory.  I think it will be great once complete.

 The next couple of projects are my attempt to use the techniques championed by Sue Spargo.  I came across her work by chance when searching for inspiration for my fabulous beret hat detailed here.  Sue Spargo did the leaves that are pictured in that post.  Amazing work.  This book is going to be my muse this year.  I've even signed up to take Sue's online class on Craftsy.com.  Check it out.

You may remember I've been working on stair risers for a long time.  Years.  I complete a new riser whenever I have a good idea which is, apparently, not often!  The previous efforts are detailed here.  I love my stairs and visitors to my house are always very impressed.



So, I finally came up with ideas for two of the remaining risers.  The first is inspired by Fraktur designs and I used a tulip pattern directly from Susan Feller's Design in a Box.  (Available here)  I bought this great product at a rug hooking retreat.  It has Fraktur patterns on card stock so I was able to scan the tulip and then print it out multiple times to make all my patterns.  The entire riser is about 36" wide and there is a tulip at each end with long curving stems crossing in the middle.  A heart seemed to be the perfect motif for the center.

You can see each little bit of the tulip is a different wool.  The inspiration wool was the main one on the heart and the base of the tulip.  All other wools were chosen based on their relationship with that wool.  Thus the orange and deep red and the fabulous green.  I embellished some of the portions using stitches from Sue Spargo's book.  

I'm also working on a stair riser that's dedicated to our town, Hudson, Ohio.  This is a bit of a "duh" moment since I can't believe I haven't done this one before.  As a refresher, Hudson was founded in 1799, 4 years before Ohio became a state.  We are fiercely proud of our history and our architecture.  Here's a shot of our main street:

I didn't think I had the artistic ability to pull off the row of stores from an angle like this so I am doing mine from head on.  No perspective required.  Obviously, a work in progress but here is some of the completed work.

 Each store front is a little different.  I am trying to duplicate color scheme as closely as possible.  This section of Main Street is almost entirely brick, either left red or painted.  It was once wood but there was a major fire in 1792 and this block was lost.  So they rebuilt in brick.  One block north is still all wood.  Part of the charm of this fantastic place.  My little post-it notes detail the trim and window colors so when I'm working in front of the TV I don't have to pull up a picture on my phone and try to determine which floss I should be using.

The beautiful clock tower will be added last.  It will sit in front of the two buildings on the far right.  The clock tower is brick and those 2 buildings are brick so I used 3 different red wools to delineate between the buildings.

Once these two risers are complete, I only have 1 more to do.  And, the final riser is very near the bottom so I probably won't do much detail since no one is going to want to squat down to look.  Something colorful and coordinating.  That shouldn't take too long to come up with an idea, should it?

So this is what's on the docket for January.  Oh, I almost forgot!  Of course, I have a knitting project on the needles.  I've been using Brooklyn Tweed wool almost exclusively for about 18 months and I'm knitting a pullover using a beautiful pale grey plus colorwork with all my leftover wools and a couple of additions.  I'll take some shots of that soon.  I finished about 1/2 of it over holiday break but I've put it aside while I'll working on the stair risers.  It'll keep.

What are you working on this winter?

Sheep! Another project from the sewing group.

I've written about our sewing group before.  We've been together for almost 10 years sharing our love of handcraft.  You can find several posts about them by searching for "sewing group."  One big project I did can be found here.  Every year, we give each other a new creative challenge.  One year it might be color, another year it's a theme.  These squares are from my 2012 challenge -- SHEEP!!  I collect sheep in all forms and I knew my very creative friends would have a great time with this one.

The background wool is hand-dyed using the Cushing color "Bittersweet."  I knew I would use a blue as a background color.  My instructions to the group were to do sheep of any kind -- a grouping, a single sheep, just a face, etc.  The fabric was square so I didn't have to worry about portrait or landscape orientation.  Everyone was also given a bit of a paint chip showing a deep, Colonial blue.  They were asked to incorporate that blue in their design.

I just finished putting the pieces together and creating a wall hanging for one of our rooms.  There are very high ceilings in this room so above some French doors seemed like a great place.  Here's the finished piece hung in place.

 This one is mine.  Obviously.  I used some Merino wool yarn and did a hooked rug design.  The face is a flat appliqué of black wool as are the legs.  The bird is blanket-stitched to the background.  I would say that mine ended up being a little heavy!  It takes a surprising amount of yarn to hook a sheep in this way.  But, I love the texture and the way the sheep looks like it is VERY ready for a haircut.

 Here we have Beth and Barb.  Beth is primarily a quilter and Barb does a little of everything but is super talented at embroidery.  Two funny stories about these pieces.  Beth lost her paint chip and didn't even realize I had a color preference!  But, she still used the blue!  Barb accidentally cut the legs off one of the sheep and had to re-appliqué.  Hilarious.

Here's Kathy and Katie.  I feel compelled to tell you that I taught Kathy about needle-felting.  And, she produces something like this!  The student becomes the master, I think!  I love the expression on the sheep's face.  Kathy and Katie both used the required blue in the form of a ball of yarn.  Fabulous.  Katie's has my shop name embroidered on the bottom which makes it a favorite as well.

Angela is here on the left.  Another master embroiderer in the group.  The circles of stitching are so perfect!  And to the right is Anne.  Again with the embroidery!  Ann always does amazing detail work on all her pieces.  She humbles me.  I had to buy a book on embroidery stitches to keep up with this group.


Finally, here is Heinke's.  I love this one.  A little flock of sheep with vintage doily collars.  How clever.  I also love that there are three little sheep just as I have three boys.  I wonder which of mine is the black sheep?!  I suppose it changes daily.


I hope you love the look as I do.  I'm so proud to be in such a creative group.  My next set to put together is a Christmas-themed set on beautiful blue wool.  Everyone was to do a Christmas tree -- a portion, a branch, or a whole tree.  They are amazing.  Another post for another day.

Rug Hooking with a Deadline

First, let's give credit where credit is due.  This rug is a design available on www.blacksheepwooldesigns.com .  The rug is called "Potted Pineapple with Pomegranate" and I think it is simply stunning.  The picture above is from the website and I DID NOT HOOK THAT RUG.  But, I am hooking this pattern. 

I don't really believe in buying a kit for a rug.  For one, I love choosing wool.  I love the hunt for the perfect red or variegated green or whatever.  If you've read any of my previous posts, you'll know that I love going to thrift shops and buying old wool.  I also love to play around dyeing wool, although I have about 100 years of learning to do in that department.  So, I bought the pattern on linen and am hooking it myself.

In retrospect, this may not have been the wisest choice.  You all know I am a knitter first.  Rug hooking is way down on the hobby list for me.  After Sewing, after Gardening, after Chauffeur for my boys.  Also, with a single exception, all the rugs I've made have been geometrics.  I've never done anything remotely pictorial and this rug is not only very pictorial but very large.  Over 30 inches in each dimension.  But, I could not resist the fabulous pattern so off I went.

The first change I made was in the far outside border.  I felt like the rug was very dark and wanted to brighten it up a bit.  So, my border is in shades of yellow/mustard.  My 1836 house has a lot of mustard.  Using this color ensures I can hang this rug in any room of my house and it will look great.  I also think this border picks up the pineapple colors quite nicely.  My plan is to hang this one over the fireplace in a new room we are adding on to our house THIS YEAR.  Hooray!

The second major change I made was to the urn holding up the pineapple.  The original rug had a red urn.  Red looks great in my house and certainly looks great in the original rug.  However, I have been on a quest to put more blue in my house.  The urn you see is the second version.  The first version used a much lighter blue -- almost a robin's egg blue.  And, the wedge-shaped pieces were in a bittersweet shade plus a terracotta.  The combination looked great together, but looked TERRIBLE in this rug.  This is more of a dark, colonial blue and the wedge pieces are in a fabulous orange and a tweed that combines all the shades of the rug -- red, blue, gold, green, etc.  The tweed came from a thrift shop blazer.  Anyone that recycles wool knows that getting wool from a blazer is a royal pain.  Interfacing, 5 million seams, pockets, etc.  You don't get a lot of fabric to work with and it takes a ton of time to cut the darn thing up.  Still, this tweed was so amazing and included so many of my favorite colors, I had to do it.  And, I'm glad I did.  It's perfect.

Moving on to the leaves.  There are three different sets of leaves:  the pineapple top, the lettuce leaves under the pineapple, and the grape leaves sticking out each side of the urn.  I pulled out all my greens and tried to sort them into three distinct groups for these.  I knew the pineapple needed to be dark because pineapple leaves are dark.  So, I picked those greens first.  The lettuce leaves ended up being the middle tones.  I'm not 100% happy with the lettuce and may need to pull out and change the center rib.  It is two different wools, but the shades are so similar that the vein disappears into the rest of the leaf.

The oak leaf is by far my favorite of the three but it was no picnic getting there.  The first edge tone was very bright and too clear a tone for this rug.  I tend toward the muddy tones and anything too pure looks wrong.  So, I dug back in my bags of wool strips and found a whole bag of mixed greens.  In there was a variegated green that went from chartreuse to sage to loden.  Perfect.  I had to change the vein color too.  But, I had a loden that exactly matched the loden in the edge color.  This is why we have so much wool.  You never know when you're going to need that exact shade!  The field color of the grape leaf is the only one that worked with my original choice.  I think the leaf looks great.

Late afternoon every day I make sure I have something to work on while I sit with my family in the evening.  Tonight it's the other oak leaf.  Plus some of the background.  This rug has a lot of background.  I'm using a black tweed, an impossibly dark green, and solid black all mixed together.  There's so very much of the background that I try to do a few square inches every night so I see some progress.  I would hate to finish all the fun stuff -- the motifs and the detail -- and then be faced with weeks of nothing but black.  Ugh.

As for the title of this post:  Rug Hooking with a Deadline -- that refers to the fact that I'm attending my very first rug hooking camp in about a month.  I'm taking a class with Dianne Kelly, a well-known rug hooker from right here in Northeast Ohio.  She's amazing and I'll be knitting one of her patterns.  It's another pictorial and it has chickens!!  Three chickens that I'll model after three of my own girls in the backyard.  So, I'm trying to finish this rug before the camp.  I'm not sure I'll make it, but I'm making some real progress and hope to have it down to just background and finishing at the very least.  I'll post more pictures as I go.  My next thing to tackle is the large tulips at the top of the arrangement.  I'm thinking more orange...