Together at last

I know it doesn't look very together and the squares weren't connected in the photo. But I needed to figure out what kind of sashing and border to put on the rug. So, I laid the blocks out and took a lot of pictures with different fabrics. This gold and navy combination seemed best.

So, now, I've basted together the burlap (and two linen) borders of each block and cut the strips. I started hooking the gold last night but it's going to take a while. This is definitely going to be the hard part. This rug is a bit larger (44 x 30 in) than most that I do. I would still like to have this done before Christmas but I may be over-optimistic.

'tis the season

It always gets really busy about now. We've tried to get down to basics but there are still lots of things to do. So what's keeping us busy?










The Big Event this week was our seniors' Christmas lunch. Anne had the fun of pulling it all together and we're pleased to say it was a great success. The room was happy, the food was delicious and the helpers were plentiful. Of course, the best part was the music. The senior vocal ensemble from Argyle was fabulous! Just the right thing to get us all in the Christmas spirit.

And, since we were feeling so Christmas-sy, we took yesterday to help Santa's elves. Our early gift to DIL was a day for her to shop without the little ones. We had a good time watching them in the mall's adventure jungle with nets and tunnels and lots of slides. After we had a bit of lunch we window-shopped on our way back to the climbing stuff. Like her Grammy, Becky likes to look at the bling. And Charlie liked the big trucks. He didn't know they were remote controlled and we didn't demonstate. Just looking was good enough for both of them.

And here's the other thing that's been keeping me busy. This is two wool tweeds. The turquoise is a blue plaid which was over-dyed with yellow-green. The gold is an Irish tweed which is soft and buttery feeling and has a gray/green herringbone design. I like how fresh and clean the colors are against the white.

I'm determined to have the whole rug put together before Christmas. So, maybe there'll be no other blocks for this one. Ideas for the future.

One down

And one to go. Or maybe a couple more squares. There's so many blocks to choose from and I dream about others as I hooked this one. Since they're not very time-consuming, I'm thinking that maybe a bigger rug would be fun. I have to join the squares up anyway so it's just a little more work at the end.

I've been renaming this square. Since the moon looks a little pizza-ish I thought it should be "That's Amore" LOL The fabric is a pale yellow fairisle sweater with oranges, reds, greens and grays in the pattern. I thought it worked really well with the brights in the other blocks.

And I do like the night sky. I spot dyed a white wool scarf with a deep blue and a dark fuschia. It was layered and the dyes spooned over the top layer so they soaked through. This gives me a continuum of shading to choose from when filling in the background. Quite a bit left so I'm sure it'll turn up somewhere else. It's so nice to hook this fabric, too.

Next!

Getting started

I can't wait to get going on this challenge. I've drawn out the quilt blocks that i want to use and just have to assemble the wools that I want. I think these blocks will work well with what's already been done and I can blend the colors pretty well.

I've chosen Next Door Neighbors because the swap creates new neighbors in the hooking world. And because triangles are my favorite shape. I think I can incorporate some creams, turquoise and green into this one.

The other is Moon Over the Mountain. I have always wanted to hook this one and it would have been part of the swap rug for sure. I'm thinking that the moon could be a big old harvest moon in oranges, yellows and golds. I can hook dark purples and blues into the sky and dark greens and blues into the mountain.
This is gonna be fun.