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Tuesday Hooking Fun

I hosted hooking today at my house.  Tal and Nova and I hooked and ate and chatted from 10am until 5pm!!  There's nothing better than spending the day with people that share a passion with you. As I mentioned in my last post I'm heading to Rug Camp in January and I bounced ideas off of them of patterns and backgrounds that I'm thinking about doing in Dianne Kelly's class.  I have pretty much decided on this Sally Kallin(Pine Island Primitives) pattern....I I just love it and think it's a rug that lends itself to lots of different learning arenas.  I've never hooked water and love the way Sally's "moves".  I took some pictures of our rugs today......Tal's first.  I think her watermelon looks so real!  It's such a wonderful piece and the colors are great...Check out that wonderful handmade hook.  The wood is stunning!  Next is Nova's rug.  She was smart today....she brought only one color of wool to force herself to concentrate and get her background done.  This little angel is so adorable and this is a perfect 4th of July rug..... Next comes my little piece.  Now I know that I should be hooking on my Scarecrow Rug but since I'm a bit of an "all over the place" kind of girl I started this the other week.  I want to get it done for my daughter so that she can take it home after Thanksgiving and use it during the Christmas season.  I'm a real fan of Margo White's little mats.....  I added some burlap from an old "never gonna do" rug because it was too small to grip well on my frame.  The burlap shreds all over the place and it's a total pain in the ass...might have to get out my sewing machine and turn the edges under.  This is the little rug that I was dyeing the background for when I ruined it with apple cider vinegar instead of white vinegar.  I snapped a picture of an Ebay treasure that I won a few years ago.  It was $10.  I can't imagine who would put such a sweet little mat up for bid.  It's hooked beautifully and looks great by my fireplace..... And lastly....my latest antique find.  I spent last Saturday antiquing with a girlfriend and found this awesome wire cart for a song.  It is perfect to house the wool for my current rugs and easy to see the pieces I need....  It was just a wonderful Fall hooking day and I can't wait for our next get together! 

Thursday Wool Snippets

I spent Thursday with my Jordan(she's home on Fall Break) in Northern Virginia doing some power shopping.  In between Malls I made a few stops at my favorite Thrift Stores looking for vintage items and wool skirts.  While I didn't score in the vintage items department I struck gold in wool skirts!  Seven....yes seven in one store!!!  I couldn't throw them in my shopping cart quickly enough....as if someone would want 3 large kilts(and the good perfect rug hooking kind of wool not the worsted wool) and 4 large Pendelton skirts that I feel pretty certain they don't even make anymore!  I love kilts...love that you get tons of wool out of them and even love the maker's tags inside the waistband.  After I wash and disassemble them I always carefully cut out the tag and pin it to the wool.  I've kept most of the interesting tags over the years.  I once saw a rug in Massachusetts at a show and the maker had kept the tags from the articles of clothing she used in the rug and stitched them on the binding on the back of the rug.  She had used several kilts and I thought it was a neat idea, although one I've yet to do.  Here's a little snippet of my haul....    When I got home and checked the mail I had a couple more "wool thrills".  Rebecca Erb's sample packet arrived.  Her wool is just amazing...that gal has certainly blessed us Rug Hookers with the absolute best selection of wool out there.  I loved every one of her samples and plan to make a rather large order real soon. I also received a wonderful dye book I ordered off Ebay from Cathy Meyer(HookedonPrimitives).  The formulas look great and I can't wait to play in the dye pot and create some of them tomorrow!   So those were all my Thursday finds and thrills.  It doesn't take much to make this ole Hooker happy!  Oh and did I tell you I paid $2.50 for each one of my skirts and kilts?  Not bad at all.  I saved enough money to make my reservations to attend this in January....Well not really....but I am headed here and I'm so excited!  I'll be on my way to Florida at that time anyway to our little Maddie's 3rd birthday.  I don't think she'll be too upset that her birthday is January 20th and her Nanny will be a day late.  I'll have to make it up to her in a big way.......the Land of Mickey and Minnie comes to mind and since they live in Odessa it's just a couple hours away.  Oh and I'm taking Dianne Kelly's class at Off the Ocean.  I have to seriously start thinking about what rug I want to hook and get it ordered.  Lots to do between now and then! This will be my first real camp so any advise would be greatly appreciated!Hope everyone has had a wonderful Fall weekend..... 

Polly Minick's Latest Rug Hooking Book

Every now and then a book slips by me.  It's usually when I'm focused on another obsession.  By that I mean ...say I become obsessed about everything needlepoint and a rug hooking book is unveiled during that needlepoint obsessive time... by the time I'm back around to hooking( I have too many passions) everyone already has the book and isn't talking it up anymore.  Which is exactly what happened when this amazing awesome incredible book came out last year..... I'm such a sucker for Patriotic motifs and this is just full of them!  I think I'm going to have to hook the rug on the cover of the book.  It's amazing!  I'll be heading out in the morning to do some wool scrounging.  I strucked gold last week finding 3 Pendleton skirts in a size 36(didn't know they  made that size).  There had to have been 2 yards of wool in each one of them as they were all pleated.   Oh......I got myself 4 big honkin' jugs of white vinegar yesterday.  I'm all set if we have a critical white vinegar shortage anytime soon or I fall on financial hard times and can't afford to buy any!!   

A Rug Hooker's Mistake

I've been hooking rugs since 1995 when my husband attended the Naval War College in Newport, RI. His classes were usually over by noon which meant he was home when the girls came home from school....that meant I didn't have to rush home from Sweet Briar Studio in Hope Valley, RI on the days I had hooking or dyeing lessons or a hook in, as it was an hour away.  The owner, Chris Sayles, was my teacher and she was just amazing.  I also spent lots of time with a couple of the older Hookers dyeing wool and listening to their stories of their mother's and grandmother's hooking experiences.  One woman in particular invited me to her home one day as she was dyeing wool for a rug that she remembered seeing as a child.  It was a patriotic rug and is still the most awesome piece I've ever seen.  This dear sweet woman had rugs that she and her family had hooked on every inch of floor in her little cottage.  It was like being in a museum!    

So I soaked a couple yards of Dorr beige plaid wool this morning in preparation for playing in the dye pot tonight.  I was going to dye a blue background for a little Margo White Santa using a Vermont Folk Rug formula called Wild Flower Blue and also Emma Lou's Antique Blue, just in case I wasn't crazy about the VFR one.     I had 4 big white enamel pots going and I mixed the dye and poured it in and put my wool in, careful not to stir too much as I wanted a lot of variation.  It was all setting up beautifully and I was ready to "glunk glunk" my white vinegar in the pot.  I went to the pantry.....no white vinegar.  I headed to the basement where we keep extra staples....none there either.  I even looked out in the garage just in case, zero!  So I did what I knew I should never have done but I did it anyway....I glunked this... And my beautiful, perfectly dyed wool ended up looking like this..... The color is totally nasty looking although all Hookers will tell you there's no such thing as a mistake.  I knew better than this.....while no one has ever flat out said don't use Cider Vinegar I've never seen anyone use it.  That should have told me something.  I should have taken my lazy ass to Target and purchased white vinegar rather than ruin 2 yards of wonderful wool.  Not a good night for this ole' Hooker!                        

Sweet and Sinister Swap

For some reason I've had trouble posting this so I'll make it short and sweet and see if that helps.  I promised my friend, Pam, that I would post pictures of my Halloween Sweet and Sinister swap that Artysmama recently held.  I had such fun creating my items for this!!

For my Thrift/Handmade item I altered a spool with vintage laces(I put a black lace collar around the bottom to hide the wooden bottom of the spool) and topped it with a plastic pumpkin that I got at Michaels.  I covered the pumpkin with torn pieces of vintage sheet music dipped in watered down Elmer's glue. I also wrapped black wire around a pencil to make the curls and painted the stem black..... The sweet item was a Whitman's candy box covered in more vintage sheet music with millinery flowers and a clip earring attached to the top.  I wrapped little vintage black and cream items in cream tulle and tied them with black silk ribbon for the candies....   The sinister item was a crow I bought at Michaels and jazzed up with ribbon and chandelier tears...... Last was my decorative piece that I purchased at a store and namesake of my blog, The Things I Love, in Manassas, Va.... I had a wonderful time with this......it's fun to just let yourself go and create! 

A Wool Filled Fall Day

Yesterday was one of those fantastic Fall days here in Virginia!  My Beantown Boy and I took off bound for the grounds of Montpelier(home of James Madison) in Orange County, VA...to the Fall Fiber Festival that is held each year on the first weekend in October.  We hadn't been in a couple years and were pleasantly surprised at how much it had grown.  I loved that there were many more vendors and my husband that there were more food "stalls".  The sheep herding events were fascinating to watch!  I'll confess I spent a great deal of my time there playing out a scenario in my head whereby we bought a farm and raised sheep, Alpacas, and litters of Border Collies.  We all have our fantasies!  I don't knit, spin,or weave although I've dabbled in all three, including coming home one day with an Ashford spinning wheel and not a clue how to use it(a gal from upstate NY got a good deal on Ebay a couple years later) but the three fiber arts have remained a source of fascination for me and an envy of those that have mastered them.  After lunch I strolled over to the education tent and was thrilled to see a table of Rug Hookers.  They had just given a beginner lesson!  They were selling a rug hooking book that I had never seen before and of course had to have.........Hooked Mats of Newfoundland and Labrador:Beauty Born of Necessity.  It's a beautiful book compiled by the Rug Hooking Guild of Newfoundland and Labrador and a must have for any rug hooker who loves the history of these old beauties.... The awesome wool underneath the book was a thrift store Ralph Lauren skirt find for .50 after we left the festival!  I chatted with one of the vendors who had the most beautiful rovings and yarn and she generously gave me a handful of an alpaca roving and mohair cuttings to use in my rugs....   In exchange, we are going to get together this Winter for some hooking lessons.  I think I'll get the best deal as I'll get to spend some time on her farm in the Blue Ridge and see her amazing animals in their own environment.  Here's one of them.... Hope everyone had a perfect Fall weekend! 

More pictures of the day.......

A Primitive Rug Hooking Day

Fall is definitely in the air here in the 'burg!  It seems every Fall when we get our first hint of cool weather I'm inspired to do two things that I've couched during the long hot summer.......baking and hooking!  Whenever I meet someone new and as I'm getting to know them mention that I "hook" they immediately assume I'm a "latch hooker".  What I am is a primitive rug hooker.  We hook strips of wool cut from wool fabric into ground material such as burlap,linen, and monks cloth to create a pictorial scene.  Most of us collect both new and recycled wool and dye it to create the colors we need.  So yesterday I had my good friend, Gaye, over to play in the dye pot and have her first lesson on how to hook a rug. We laughed and created a total mess of my kitchen and she left hours later with a bundle of beautiful freshly dyed wool and a nice start on her rug! Oh and my friend, Nova, came by.  She's the most prolific rug hooker I know and she was full of wonderful little tidbits for Gaye and I!  We are going to start a hooking group to get together on a regular basis at each other's houses.  Here are some pictures of our adventures in the dye pot........ And then the results of our work........ And this is what I'm working on...I think the green will be perfect for the pumpkin leaves....    

Home Again!!

What an awesome time I had in TN and KY last week.  It was one of those trips where I could do anything and everything I wanted to do....mostly because I was by myself!  I visited so many antique shops it made my head spin!  If I saw a sign for one on the highway my car immediately would speed up and I was zipping off at the next exit.  I even found a vintage restaurant ware shop in TN and bought 8 plates and salad plates from various country clubs, restaurants, and even a boy's school.  I love mixing dishes! Caroline's wedding plans worked out wonderfully.......I just turned over all her plans to the wedding coordinator and she will take care of it.  She teaches a small business course in wedding planning at the University of Tennessee so I feel very confident this wedding will go without a hitch!   The Inn where it will be held is just wonderful!  Love it when things fall into place easily!

I was able to do some genealogy research at the library while I was in KY. I  also went on the hunt to find my GGGrandmother and GGGrandfather Huffman's grave.  I traveled all over Greenup County Kentucky looking for them and even got stuck on a gravel road that was straight up hill(a cemetery was at the top) and had to back down, inch by inch, to keep from going over a cliff as the road was so narrow I barely fit on it.  It was not one of my brightest moments and I was scared out of my mind as there was no cell phone coverage and not a soul in sight anywhere for miles.  I finally found their graves in Caroline Cemetery covered in weeds the last day I was there.  This is very old cemetery and most of it is overrun with tall grass so you have to take hedgers to hack your way through it.  I was thrilled to find it and the strange part is that I had parked my car and walked back to the entrance of the cemetery and worked forward....well my car was parked right next to their graves but of course I couldn't see it for the grass.  Here's one of the the foot stones. Her name was Sarah Jane Brown Huffman and she was born 7/1/1859 in Floyd County,KY and died 7/19/1955.  I think it's such a wonderful gift knowing all that I know about my family but it can be rather like eating a bag of chips....hard to stop once you get started!  I just keep wanting to know more and more.

Busy upcoming week for me......I'm heading to Ferrum College to celebrate Jordy's birthday on Wednesday(her bd is Sat. but we aren't going to spoil her birthday fun with her friends!  The last thing you want to do on Sat. night of your 20th birthday is hang with your parents!)  Next weekend is also the big Crop at 'doodles and I'm attending both days.  I also want to spend some time outside enjoying this beautiful weather.....Fall is my favorite time of year!  Here's some peeks at my TN/KY treasures......

Weddings and Hurricanes and the Dark and Bloody Ground

Lots of little adjustments these past couple weeks.  My Boston Boy is spending more time at FEMA than at home with all the hurricanes and he's spending them at night!  For all those out there who work the "night shift" God Bless You and Your's!  I hate having him gone every night!  Sea Duty was better!!!  And I'm soooo whining!  And my Baby is back at school........so for a welcome diversion I'm off to Gatlinburg, TN  tomorrow to see a Wedding Consultant about a wedding.  That should take my mind off hurricanes and empty nests!  Then I'm pointed toward the Land of the Dark and Bloody Ground(my birth place) to dig up some Huffman/Stephens/Oney and McBrayer bones and sprinkle a healthy dose of antiquing in there for good measure!  Oh and since my thoughts are all over the place I went to Marshalls the other day and I felt like I struck gold!  A wonderful huge black framed bulletin board was right out in front for me to find and schlep home. It was a whopping $30!  And it is HUGE!  Oh and my best high school friend, Vickie, who lives in Tuttle, OK(where Holly Doodle lives) just started a Blog.  She and I are part of the Sweet and Sinister Swap.  And speaking of the Sweet and Sinister Swap here's a little peek at one of the projects for my partner, Erika....  Isn't it just as plain as the nose on your face what it is???? 

So all....have a wonderful week and I'll take lots of pictures and have lots of tales to tell when I get back. 

Missing Jordan!

The house is just way too quiet tonight!  Things went smooth as silk getting her set up except a glitch in hooking her computer up to the College's WiFi.  The Dell rep will get it up and running within the week.  I was hoping it would be at least 2 weeks which would give me the excuse to drive back down and bring my laptop to her.  Any excuse to see her!  She was happy as could be when we left....she was loving seeing all her friends after this long Summer.  I, on the other hand, was not so happy.  I miss her so much!  I think it was actually easier last year!  Here's how we left her yesterday with her roommate, Megan(who is a real Sweetheart)!  Ahhh to be 19 again..........