Monday, January 16, 2012

I remember!

Picking up that hook was easier than remembering how to ride a bike.  I spent a couple of hours yesterday happily pulling wool strips through burlap.  Ah, it was lovely.

How to do wasn't the only thing I remembered.  There was the pleasure of cutting the strips.  I hand-cut my strip because I enjoy it.  I'm a process kind of gal and prefer to do things the long - and often hard - way.  And, for me, I like the look of hand-cuts.  I remembered how much fun it is to sort through the baskets looking at all the colors and textures.  I always use recycled wools, too.  Again, it's just me and my love of irregularity and eccentricity.


 I started with a big heart.  Can't go wrong putting love in your design, right?  The background will be as colorful as I can make it with my hit and miss strips.  Actually, I confess to letting my inner control freak loose on this.  I have a really hard time being completely random.  I have tried just blindly taking pot-luck from the worm box.  It goes OK for a while but then I start obsessing about stuff like too many yellows too close together.  Then before I know it, I've made a conscious decision to hook in a purple strip.   This time I just started off selecting the colors as I go. There is a randomness in which strip within the color family I use, though.  So I think it's fitting the spirit of the design.

What I had forgotten was how vicious the little gripper hooks on the frame can be.  Ouch!  I have roughed up skin on the heel of my hooking hand - looks like it's been sanded.  And somehow I have what looks like a cat scratch on the other hand.  I don't remember doing this and there's no cat. 

Mainly, I am having such a good time.  Hooked all over again. 

11 comments:

Rose said...

Very pretty! When you say wool, do you mean yarn?
I don't know anything bout the craft...

Ginny Hartzler said...

You are making this sound like so much fun!!!!! And I love this design and the random colors already, it really is from your heart!

Mimi said...

Oooh, it's beautiful!
You're hooked and you may be hooking others too!
Great (re)discovery.

Rudee said...

Watching this evolve may be dangerous to my pocketbook. I have done a bit of hooking in my past...but not in a long, long time.

I love that bright red heart.

Rudee said...

That blogger is full of gremlins today. It lied and told me service was unavailable. Not believing, I pressed to publish my comment several times then finally left safari to come here via firefox and look what I found. Apparently, saying it once wasn't enough!

Have a great day!

Melissa Ann Goodwin said...

This is going to be gorgeous! I love it - will you post the finished product?

Sassafras and Winterberry said...

Oooo...I love it! I know what you mean about the scrappy hooking...it's hard to just let go! It's beautiful so far.
Courtney

Joanna said...

I commented earlier but it didn't make it through. Probably forgot to click something. Just wanted to say that the heart at the middle is so nice and I'm sure your colours will be perfect.

Tanna said...

One of my friends made all us little elasticized, quilted covers to go around the edge over the gripper area... saved our hands and arms!! I'm sure you could whip up one for yourself in no time. (big circle, which becomes rectangle over your frame, about four inches wide when finished with elastic sewn in each edge. Quilted material, doesn't let the grippers attack!)

Lovin' that heart!!! blessings ~ Tanna

deb said...

Looks great! I love random colours all patchworked. I love the way it looks & I love the way I don't think that many colours all put together in one place could possibly look good - but it does!

Unknown said...

Always wanted too, but never picked up this craft. Maybe because it looks like one can really get hooked to it (one of my friends in Holl. was). You are really very skilled in it,from what I've seen.

Happy 1000th anniversary! Will be a while before I get there:)

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