Rug Hooking Frame Cover and 2" Squares Project

Hi all! I got this months issue of Rug Hooking Magazine and they had a pattern in it for a gripper frame cover that you could make to suit your particular gripper frame. I really liked the idea of it so I made it up yesterday using some blue tapestry fabric that i had lying around. I quite like the way that it turned out. At least those shar grippers are covered now :)

Now I just need to make an edge cover for my frame. I really like the ones that you can get made out of polar fleece but I'm sorry I refuse to pay $50.00 to buy one! LOL.

This is my latest 2" squares "leaders and enders" project. I saw this one the cover of a block somewhere and really liked it as an easy pattern to use up my 2" squares. I didn't actually buy the book b/c the pattern was pretty easy to figure out without even opening the cover. Here is a link to the method that I use for my 2" squares. I used the same approach for doing the white units as well. It's a nice way to use up fabric and make something while you're working on something else. I would never be able to sew this many 2" squares together all at once but to do one at a time is great!

What do you all think?

Another Finished UFO

I finished another UFO today! Label, hanging sleeve and binding all are finished! I think that this is about #24 but I have lost count now.

My original plan for this was to make a whole bunch of these blocks and make an under-water sweatshirt jacket. The blues in this quilt ended up looking more like ice and less like water though so these 12 blocks sat in a bag in my UFO area for a couple years. I pulled them out a while ago and realized that the reason that I had never finished the jacket is because the blues were just completely wrong for me and what I wanted.

So I decided that maybe I could make a baby quilt from these blocks. So I put the quilt together and spray basted a blue flannel on to the back. Then it sat there for another couple weeks. Then I realized that this really wasn't a baby quilt LOL! So I replaced the backing with a blue batik fabric that I had in my stash and quilted it free-form with a variegated blue thread top and bobbin.

Now that it is quilted I actually really like it! I was never all that in love with this quilt; but, now I think that it is pretty cool. I am extremely pleased with the effect that the quilting has on this quilt and I had a really fun time quilting it. Sometimes UFO's can surprise you and this time this one really did :)

Yet Another Baby Quilt! I Am on a Roll!

Yey! I finished turning the binding to the back on this baby quilt last night while we watched a movie!

I know, I know this is yet another 4-patch 1-patch baby quilt but I just love that pattern! This is the absolute last of the baby bali fabrics that I bought a few years ago. I bought about 1 meter of each of the two baby bali's that my LQS had in and I wish now that I had purchased about 3 meters of each as they are sooooo wonderful! The colours can suit a boy or a girl, although this quilt is going to a girl, and, because they are batiks they are wonderful to work with and press like a dream! I backed this quilt in a mottled yellow flannel fabric to be nice and cuddly. I would have made it longer like the baby quilt in my previous blog post; but, like I said, I honestly don't have anymore of the batiks left! LOL! It is still about 36" square however.

Now to peel off the baby fabric that I had put on another UFO and replace it with something less babyish so that it can be used as a table-topper. I was going to use a UFO as a baby quilt but it really isn't very babyish. It could be used as a baby quilt but I think that if I put something more genaric on the back it may be more appealing. I'll post a picture of it tomorrow maybe.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!

Another Baby Quilt

I finally finished this baby quilt! It is a gift for friend's of ours that just had a baby girl. The pink fabric has little stick figure surfers on it which is perfect for them since they met in California and love to surf! I could not believe it when I saw this fabric lol!

Once again I have used my favorite four-patch one-patch baby quilt pattern but i just love it so much! It shows off the fabric really nicely, it works up quickly and it always looks good. With baby quilts I think that a lot of the times simple is better.

Now to finish the other baby quilt!!!

Whole Cloth Jacket Finished!

I finally finished my whole cloth jacket!!  All that I had to do was put the binding and cuffs on but I just wasn't motivated to do it before now.  Completely ridiculous that it took me that long to do it!  This jacket has been sitting in my to do pile since the spring just waiting for those finishing touches.  Now it is at my LQS and on display to advertise my sweat shirt jacket class.  Nothing like a deadline to get you moving!

I actually think that I work much better with a deadline to be honest.  I get things done when they need to be done and don't make excuses for not working on it.  If I don't have a deadline I can start other things or play with something else.  Not good!  UFO's bother me!  I feel like I shouldn't start anything else until I finish the projects that I have already started and yet a lot of times I need a deadline to do it.  Now isn't that a conundrum!  

Fiberfest Weekend and Rug Update

Hi all! I am back from Fiberfest and exhausted! What a great time I had! Some women from the Olde Forge Rug Hooking Guild were with me in the morning and the ladies from the Women Matters group were there in the afternoon. What a great group of women it was an absolute pleasure to meet you all. Here is a picture of their wonderful rug! I can honestly say that this picture doesn't do the rug any justice at all! it truly is a wonderful rug! A lot of people were amazed by the colours and the beauty of this rug.



I made a bit of progress sitting and hooking this weekend but not as much as you'd think from spending a whole weekend there! Ah well! Slowly my circles are getting completed :) We did a lot of talking about rug hooking and showing people how to hook as well as guiding people through pulling their first loops. What fun it was to see people get "hooked!" Alot of people had never seen rug hooking before and they were amazed at the beauty of the rugs and the diversity and colours. Lots of people loved my circles and some didn't know what to think of them I think LOL!

Dulcy asked about some of the smaller rugs in my last post. The primitve house is actually a kit that I purchased at a second-hand store a few years ago for $5!! It is actually a kit from Hooked on Rugs and they still have the kit here. Most of the other small rugs are kits by Loretta Moore the woman that I learned to rug hook from. SHe makes wonderful little kits that are really fun and cheerful. Let me know if you need more information on her and I will look it up.

I hope that you've enjoyed seeing the display!

Rug Hooking demo at Fiberfest this Weekend

Hi all!! This weekend I will be demonstrating rug hooking at Fiberfest in Almonte. If you are in the area this is a great little show! It is the first Canadian destination for the 2008 Hoffman challenge show (which looks wonderful by the way!). And, there will be displays of many types of textile arts including; quilting, doll-making, spinning, weaving, knitting, wearable art, and rug hooking.
This is a picture of the display that I have put up so far anyways. I will be adding to it tomorrow when I go back, in the morning, but, this is most of it anyways. I set all this up myself so it took a lot longer than I thought that it would have taken. Thank goodness I went in the morning!!

I will be bringing my gripper frame with me and strip cutter and sitting and hooking with a friend. A few people should be coming over the weekend to help out. We will also have a Q-Snap with some burlap in it for people to try hooking if they want. It's always good to get people to pull those first few loops and get them "hooked!" I think that it will be great to show people how the fabric is cut and then hooked into patterns but also that you can use old clothing or hand-dyed wool if you like.

So what do you think of it so far? I will take some more pictures tomorrow :)

Fiberfest the weekend of September 6th and 7th in Almonte, ON

Hi all! If you are in the Ottawa area the weekend of September 6th and 7th I hope that you will check out Fiberfest in Almonte, ON. There will be lots of various displays including the Hoffman Challenge quilts, a quilt show, vendors and demonstrations. I will be helping out with the rug hooking demonstrations this weekend. It will just be an informal hook-in with some of our rugs on display to promote rug hooking to the public. Hopefully it will generate some intrest in the art and show people what traditional rug hooking is as opposed to latch-hooking.

I was contacted by a very nice woman from the Gananoque area. She and her fellow hookers are making a wonderful rug to raise money for the women of the Congo. A few of them will be bringing thier wonderful rug to display at our Fiberfest booth on Sunday afternoon and to join in our hook-in for a couple of hours. I think that the rug looks absolutely stunning and I can't wait to see it in person! If you would like to check out the rug and the blog these ladies started please check out Women Matters Rug Art web site. The colours in this rug are rick and wonderful.

Some links!

Hi all! Summer has finally started to be a bit nicer here for us! We had a few days finally without rain and it actually feels like a treat!

I thought that I would post a couple links for everyone if you are interested in a couple hooking techniques.

Laurie's Hooking Tips and Tricks

Gene Shepherd's Rug Hooking Web site has some wonderful information on it and even a free video for you to watch.

Just a short post but I thought that these link might just be useful to some of you :)

Rug Hooking

Dulcy asked for some progress on the rug hooked stool cover I have been working on so I thought that I would share. I have been working on this for a while now but to be honest I haven't touched it since June LOL! It just seems to be too hot to be working with wool right now. I used Gene Shepherds's technique for making the circles that he outlines in the Rug Hooker's Bible and in his DVD's. When I brought this to the rug hookers guild everyone was amazed that the circles were actually round. I had no idea when I started this that circles were actually apparently hard :)


We went to the Museum of Civilzation today in Hull and they had a wonderful exhibit on Quebec Folk Art. And, what do you think that they had but some hooked rugs! It was wonderful to see them! So, I thought that I would share a couple of pictures. If you can get to the museum to see the exhibit it is really wonderful! The odd thing was though that there weren't any quilts! I love the colours in these rugs! They are so colourful and vibrant and the whimsy in these rugs is just amazing.



These two rugs are more pictorial and really show a scene from life. I like how the words are incorporated right into the rugs. You can see how the rugs are displayed right in with the other peices of folk art. There was carving, painting, mosaics, hooked rugs, drawing etc. It was a very diverse display. They also had a nice picture of a woman pulling some loops which I liked.

I hope that you enjoyed the pictures and I think that the stool cover is coming along fine! Slow but fine :)

Wedding Quilt with Curved Piecing

Hi all! As promised here is a couple of pictures of the quilt that i just completed for a friends wedding in June. this was a completely last minute finish but I still think that it turned out nicely :) I was turning the binding to the back on the plane and in the hotel a few hours before the wedding. It is a free-form curved piecing pattern called Eureka by Maple Island Quilts by Debbie Bowles. I just loved using batiks in this quilt. The batiks made the piecing really easy and the IDT on my Pfaff sewing machine made the curves come together without using even one pin. Amazing :) Sorry you'll have to look at the picture sideways for now I will change it in a bit LOL!

Here is a close-up of the quilting. I used a gold rayon thread in the center with my free-form meander that I like to do in the center and two different colors of purple rayon thread in the boarder. I quilted the boarder using a double stitch flame feather to add to the funky effect of it. The backing was also a batik wide back that my LQS had and I loved the effect of having batik on the top and the backing.

I hope that they like the quilt.

A new Baby Quilt

I finished this baby quilt a while ago and i am sorry but I am just uploading it now :) Sorry everyone it has been a while since my last blog update! I actually have not been quilting all that much. It is summer time and sitting behind a sewing machine is just not all that appealing to me now *shock* lol! However I do have this wonderful little baby quilt that was delivered to it's owner a few weeks ago. The nursery has a jungel theme to it so when I found this great red jungle print I just had to use it! I love that juicy green first boarder print! I think that it makes the entire quilt. I know that I keep using the 4-patch one-patch pattern over and over but I really like it a lot! It show cases the fabric wonderfully and always looks nice. I have another quilt to put up tomorrow that I did for a wedding gift.

Rug Progress and Another Jacket

Well I have been working on the cover for my stool and I think that I have made pretty good progress on it. This took the better part of Sunday to complete LOL! There are all different cuts in this rug. There is everything from a 4 to an 8 cut. I should mention that this is linen burlap for the backing.

Doing this stool cover I have also figured out that I actually really like hooking these multi-coloured, anything goes circles! i love being able to use the colours that I want without imposing any rules about them. I think that I might just do my hearth rug (another rug that I am planning) in circles. Actually I was thinking of putting a game board in the middle and I think that circles on the edges would look really nice. What do you guys think?
I taught the sweatshirt jacket class again yesterday and this is my jacket so far! This is one fabric used on the whole jacket and I really like the effect. I still need to take the jacket in under the arms and over cast the edges but other than that it is finished. I have a nice light gold fabric that I am going to use to o the binding and the cuffs. It really sets off the cranes in the jacket. The ladies were all really pleased with the course and love their jackets so I am very pleased as well. So many jackets to make so little time LOL!

Starting to rug hook the stool cover today

Hi all! I finally decided to take the plunge and start to rug hook the stool cover today. I decided to do a simple cat's paw pattern using some of my scraps. I think that I will so a black background behind the circles. Eventually there will be more circles and it will look something like the cat's paw rug this on Gene Shepherd's site. Also if you are interested in rug hooking blogs Gene's is great. Here's a link. I also found a great video about rug hooking on YouTube that I wanted to share with you all. I have been waiting for someone to upload a video about rug hooking on YouTube for ever! Since I am not a rug hooking teacher I really didn't want to up load anything. This is the MS Rug Hooking Guild tutorial. And here is another great link that shows the rug hookers of Mexico. I'm happy that people are finally getting some videos out there for people to see.

Rug Hooking Sunflowers

I have finally started to rug hook the sun flowers from the rug that I started ages ago. I have never rug hooked flowers before so I have been a bit stalled to start this rug. I decided that since I went to the rug hooking guild yesterday that I would plunge in no matter what :) Well, I ended up pulling almost 90% of what I hooked and changing it but hey! I still don't know. What do you guys think? I've never done any type of shading before so I'm a little bit stumped! With quilting, I would know that if I didn't get the shade or the effect that I wanted, with the appliqué, that, I could thread paint it, or, just plain paint it. With rug hooking I don't have that experience yet so I am trying to get shading with a #5 cut because I don't want to do a fine cut on a rug that I want to put on the floor. I am a bit frustrated and feeling a bit over my head here; and, to be honest, I love it! I love feeling like the field is completely open and like the whole rug hooking world is my oyster :) i have a ton of mistakes to make and a ton to learn and it makes me really happy to be starting a whole new (well, new to me) thing.

Please tell me what you all think of my rug so far. Is the shading just whacked or is it ok?

Look what I bought and found!

Hi all!
I just had to share what i bought and found today. I bought this little stool today at a store for a few bucks because I have been wanting to recover a stool with a rug hooked cover like on this page. You may have to wait to see some of the photos but they are worth it :) this stool is in a bad enough condition that I don't feel bad about taking off the cover and replacing it with something that I make. If it doesn't work out then I won't feel bad about it. The legs are metal so some type of gold would be nice. I see some type of gold and green and maybe make it look funky but oriental and old at the same time. What do you guys think? I think this stool has some very great promise.

You can see my oldest dog Zen in the picture along with Chi's paw. Zen is now 14 and starting to show his age but he is still a happy active old dog and we love him.
This jar I found in this state, beside the grocery carts in the grocery store parking lot. I picked it up, originally, to get it out of the parking lot if it was broken; but, I soon saw that it was completely intact! Both the lid and the jar look great but they are dirty. I can't believe that someone would throw the jar away, with the shopping carts, when it wasn't broken or cracked or anything. I have no idea what I will do with it but it is a nice jar, with a lid, that could do something very useful in it's future :) What do you all think? Is this jar screaming out for some purpose?

Stitch and Flip Jacket Finished

I finally finished turning the binding on my jacket today! Yey!! Just in time for the quilt guild tonight. I am really pleased with the way that this jacket has turned out. I love all the bright colours, and, I love the decorative stitching in gold rayon thread on the jacket. You can see the one embroidery, that I decided to put on the jacket, on the left sleeve. It is my "sunshower" sun that I like to put on some of the work that I do.

This was a fun method that used up a lot of bits from my batik stash but I will say that my sewing room was a real mess while I was piecing this jacket. There was no sense clearing it away since I would just have to get everything back out again to do the next section. I thought that this would use up a lot of fabric but it didn't make a dent in my stash!

This is the back of my jacket. Doing a piece this large (the back) was challenging, but, I developed a system that allowed me to appliqué some of the pieces down so that they wouldn't get overly big. You can see the two appliqués along the right side of the jacket. I think that doing a jacket like this in 1930's prints might be really nice too. It would also look nice it the jacket was made up of individual blocks that were crazy patched then laid over the jacket instead of having one large crazy patch.

Rearranging Quilts

I decided to put some new quilts on the wall in my sewing studio. I am trying to decide if I want to try and sell a couple of quilts so I thought that I would put, the one on the left, up on the wall to see if it grows on me :) Well, putting these two quilts up in the corner above the gas fireplace has completely transformed this corner! I actually like the two quilts together. The quilt on the right is called "Sue's Favourite Blocks" I designed it as a Block of the Month (BOM) for my local quilt guild. I designed this quilt so that people would learn a new skill or unit each month. I wanted to make it so that if people made a block for the guild draw and a block for themselves they will have a nice wall quilt for themselves. The project went over really well and people liked doing a sort of group project.

As a side not I am completely determined to redo my quilting room this summer. I think that I will paint the walls a light tan or cream and put in berber carpet. I like carpet in this room because I like to sit on the floor in this room. It will be A LOT of work just to take all he "stuff" out of this room but I think that it will be worth it in the end.

Baby Quilt Finished

Well, I finished another baby quilt and it is delivered to the woman who ordered it from me! She is really happy with it so that is always really rewarding. Even though they picked out the fabrics and the pattern themselves I couldn't help but be a bit worried that they wouldn't like it. I always get like that :) every time I give a quilt as a gift I worry that they won't like it.

Do we all worry that our work will be appreciated and liked? Probably. It's silly though.


I have another baby quilt to make for two of our friends who are due in May and I had a bit of a brainwave today about it. I think that I will do another 4-patch 1-patch quilt using the yellow and white patches and the blue batik bears as the feature fabric. You can see the border fabric with corner-stones but I am not sure what to do for the first border. I have three different fabrics in there. I like the pink/purple fabric or the green the best I think. We are not sure about the sex of the baby so I am leaning towards the green fabric myself but a purple batik might be nice too. I'll have to go and hunt through my stash again :)

Which fabric do you guys think would look nice for the first border and probably binding?

Latest Projects

Hi all;
I haven't been blogging much lately because I have been working hard on this project here. It is my latest sweatshirt jacket. I finally finished covering the sweatshirt with batik pieces and finished with the decorative stitching using a gold rayon thread. I used the stitch and flip method to do the crazy patch using the sweatshirt pieces as the foundation. I like this technique because after you are done the stitching the quilting is done but I really think that the decorative stitching adds a lot to the garment and provides a bridge between the colours. I am thinking of adding some machine embroideries to some of the patches to really set the jacket off and make it a bit more like traditional crazy patch quilts. When I teach this class again, on Saturday, I will assemble the jacket and add the binding. I am thinking about curving the neckline for some added interest. If you'd like to see my tutorial for making a sweatshirt jacket please go to this page for part one and this page for part two.
I am going to start another baby quilt today as well. I am going to use the same pattern as the quilt that I made here. It is my favourite baby quilt pattern and I love the size that it makes up. I am making it for a woman to give to her grandson. They want it a bit longer than I usually make it but that isn't a problem. The top fabric is the feature fabric and the others are the supporting fabrics. The bottom fabric is a really nice flannel fabric for the back. I think that it is going to turn out very nicely :) The fabrics are washed now to press and start cutting.