Why traffic lights?

I have become obsessed with traffic lights. I'm constantly dreaming of my next rug which I want to hook with a traffic light theme.

I think most of my idea stems from a documentary I was watching the other night about Piet Mondrian. I have always liked his work and found his artistic journey a fascinating story. I remember the first Mondrian I ever saw: Broadway Boogie Woogie. I was in high school and I thought it was amazing. The documentary included some insight into how Mondrian worked to achieve these results.

At one point in the film, there are many images of traffic flowing through New York streets at nights. The red and yellow car lights streaming through the streets made me think of traffic lights. Mondrian's style was very geometric and I'm sure this style worked it's way in my mind to traffic lights.

Originally, I had one image of a traffic light in my mind. More or less like this:

But, apparently, there are many other designs. All incorporate the same three colored lights but there are different ways of building a housing. There are even digital lights now.

I'm not sure that that matters to my design. I think I'm really anxious to work with the three colors and create a design for them. Obviously there will some kind of connector to whatever the design is but I haven't gotten that far yet. Still working on red, green and yellow.
Stay tuned.

Tiny mat

Remember the hooked rug kit that I found? Here it is all worked up and finished - it's about 5 x 6 inches. I'm using it as a coaster on the table beside my hooking frame.

I've made some changes to it from the original design. When I started hooking, the yarn that came with the kit was meant to be used as the green in the bottom part - leaves, I guess. But, I disliked hooking with the yarn; it was too thin and slippery. So, I got out some other greens but couldn't see what I wanted: I was looking for a bright yellow-green. I had a Kool-aid dyed piece that was pretty bright but too green. Time for the dye-pot.

I took a piece of plain yellow and put it in hot water with a lot of salt and the darker green piece. As the fabrics simmer, over about a half-hour, the dye will leach out of the fabric and should make a mottled combination of the two colors. This it did but the mottling is pretty subtle. A big gulp of vinegar to set the color and I was happy.

I like how the yellow has seeped into the green as well as the green going to the yellow. The two fabrics are now totally different from their parents. The photo doesn't give the true finished colors but the close-up of the little mat is pretty accurate. The original dark green is still darker than the yellow fabric became.

Then I used the yarn to bind the edges. I quite like this little piece. It's supposed to be tall flowers like lupines or foxgloves that grow wild in grassy spaces. I can see that but it looks as though the field was being looked at through a rainy-day window.

Little rug

Here's a very little rug (12x12") that I've just finished. It was a housewarming gift for Fabric Stash who also likes to knit socks.

I'm discovering that I'm not very good at creating a design on paper and sticking to it. This little mat really demonstrated that. I drew my design on paper. I drew it out on the backing - in ink - and then I totally changed it. The sock and the ball of yarn were pretty easy to get the way I wanted. The background - not so much.

I had a vision of 3 inch squares which would be two different shades of green. I had a bright spring green which had been used to dye another fabric with salt transfer. I wanted to use it with the original green fabric so that the greens would be in the same green range. But as I was hooking it, I realized it wasn't looking as interesting as I had thought it would.

I tried adding a third green which was darker and more grassy. This just looked so busy I had to abandon that concept. My instincts were confirmed when Anne also said it had to change. So, out came all the strips and I created a pattern with the hooking direction and the grass green. Then I made a wider than normal border with an even darker, forest green. And that looked exactly right. I'm quite pleased with the result.

Clearly, I need the trial and error approach.

Finished

So, here it is...almost finished. The hooking is all done and it's been steam blocked. I just have the dreaded binding to do now.

I still like it but I'm pretty sick of the two fabrics. There are two entire men's jackets in this rug. It's 28 by 33 inches and will take a little while to bind.

I think of it as 'stepping over the stream to Scotland' now rather than just stepping stones. Or sometimes it makes me think of ice floes - that would definitely be very northern Scotland. I'll take a photo when it's in place. Not this week, though...other hooking adventures await.

A find

This is my latest thrift store treasure. Isn't this amazing? It's an entire rug hooking kit which I assume was purchased at a group lesson. This person took the class, made copious notes and began to hook but for some reason abandoned the effort. And then, apparently, abandoned the whole idea of rug hooking. The Joan Moshimer book came with the package. So, I have a small wooden frame with backing stapled on. Enough cut strips to make the flower picture, a hook and the binding materials. All for well under $5. Oh, the student was hooking a heart for some reason. That's easily changed back to the original kit design.

The design is from a local artist, Michelle Sirois-Silver, and I do admire her designs. She has a wonderful sense of color and balance. I'll enjoy hooking this little piece up. Then I can save the frame and hook for when I get to teach one of the grandkids how to hook rugs. A few years yet, maybe.

Aha!

The thing with challenges is that they're challenging. However, in the opportunity/threat stand-off, I was given an opportunity.

This past week I was really stuck with how to finish this rug. Faced with the dwindling stock of 'stream' tweed, I could only think of cutting off the top of the design. This would have kept the stepping stone concept but not my whole vision. I procrastinated (my specialty) and pondered and whined on this blog.

Several people made good suggestions but most involved putting in another element which I didn't want to do. The original challenge was to use only the two fabrics. Happily, I was sent a link which sent me to look at some felted art pieces from Andrea Graham. It was meant to show me another use of stones in art but I had such an aha! moment I almost ran to get a pen and re-draw. I had been so focused on the stepping stones that I had completely lost sight of the edge of the stream. And so the beginnings of a shore where I can use more gray tweed and less brown.

Now I'm back at work and I hope to have it ready for binding this week. Thanks, Penny.

The bright side

Since I'm usually a glass half-full kind of person, I'm trying to see my glass with lemonade in it this morning. Tendonitis in my knee is keeping me from tai chi and walking. I'll have to give the knee complete rest for at least a week and then ease slo-owly back in. These are the lemons.

This means I have more for time working on the stepping stones rug which has languished and progressed very slowly. I'm coming to the realization, too, that I will not have enough of the 'stream' wool to make the rug as big as I intended. Some adjustments will be necessary.


I'll be able to finish the pink cardigan for Becky. It's an old Sirdar pattern and I think it's quite feminine yet grown-up. She really wants purple socks but I don't have the yarn right now so I shall finish this for her first. Purple socks are next in the queue.


Or I can just sit and read while I ice the knee. There's a lovely stack of books just waiting to be enjoyed. Right now I'm in the middle of an Ian Rankin mystery. And we all know that I must finish that one first. I didn't use to be a fan but I picked one of the Inspector Rebus books up last year and I've been hooked ever since.

And, of course, there's the ever-present paperwork. Reports and newsletters; agendas and minutes. I can't see that I'll be bored at all with my enforced rest.

That stream

Yesterday, someone commented that the rug (so far) looks very tranquil. I think that's definitely the result of only using two colors. The only movement is, I hope, the directional hooking of the stream. That's my intent.

But this morning, as I was hooking to Jaqueline du Pre playing Elgar, some of that tranquillity came to me. And I had another thought: the whiskey that this stream produces will be smoky and dark. Somehow, the music was working very nicely with the colors of the water and the stillness of the rocks. The cello's tone echoed, at times, the smoky gray in the tweed. I could almost smell the peat fires.

Funny, only yesterday, I was wondering if it would work. Now, I can hardly wait to finish the rug and get it on the floor. The story and mood behind the rug will carry away any little design dissatisfaction of mine.

Slow

I don't seem to be making much progress on my Stepping Stones rug. It's been a busy week and I seem more content to spend my free time either reading or fooling around on the computer.

Fooling around doesn't include blogs - that's in the reading category. No, I'm talking about playing games: mostly solitaire variations but maybe bingo or an ice fisherman trying to catch fish before the silly little penguins steal them. OK, it's mindless but sometimes one needs mindless.

This is as far as I've gotten with the rug. Four stones and a donut.

Several more to go and a lot of stream. I like (not love) how it's turning out. It does make me appreciate the difficulties of using just two colors. It also reminds me of why I prefer hooking over quilting. It's that I can get a more painterly quality to the coloring. If I were quilting a stylized pattern like the stones, I would probably only be using two fabrics. And I would get a fairly flat result. That's one of my problems here: it is not as lively as other rugs have been.

I think the other problem is in me...I like variety. Being able to pick up a new color or shape every now and then keeps me going. I suppose that's why hit-and-miss is such a favorite technique of mine. A bit like knitting striped socks. They go really fast because you're counting off the stripes rather than the rows.
However, it's all in my head. Mind over matter. I'm not giving up - just kvetching.

Arguments

I hook with wide-cut strips on a burlap foundation. Even though my designs may look non-traditional, they are still being hooked in the traditional primitive style. It's important to me to continue working to produce beauty with a purpose.

The other day I was reading about the virtues of hooking on a linen foundation as opposed to one of burlap. I have often read these arguments and I keep wondering what all the fuss is about.

I watched my mother hook rugs for our home. She saved all the wool - and wool-type - garments and sewing remnants in a cupboard. When she saw a need to have a mat at a door or bedside, my father would get out the frame and he's fasten on the burlap for her. Mom drew her design and worked at the rug in her spare time - she had 5 kids. My favorite design was the Kellogg's Corn Flakes 'rooster' logo. It was green, red and yellow with a gray background. She thought it would be a cheerful addition to our kitchen floor - and it was.




I can't remember how long it took to make one but it didn't seem like more than a month. I was a kid, who knows? Suddenly the mat would appear. And then it would go down on the floor and it would be used. Our floors were hardwood and every bedroom had a mat beside it. Some were hooked, not by my mother, but by older women in the family whom I had never met. They were all hooked on burlap with wool strips or wool yarn. Some were quite old then.

The argument is that the linen doesn't break down as does burlap and will therefore last longer. That rug that you spent time designing, collecting and/or dyeing the wool, cutting the strips and finally hooking them in will disintegrate. Well, duh! Of course, it will. And, do I care if it disintegrates in hundred years or a thousand? Not really. I am not creating museum pieces...I want my rugs to be used. Walked on;, sat on; slept on. Loved for their warmth as much as for their artistic merit.


If I compare the mats I hook to the knitted garments and socks that I make, well, I sure wouldn't want the socks I spent time designing and knitting to be hung on a wall to look at. Is there a difference with rugs? I don't really think there is. I love how working in this way connects me to the story of people who have made garments for their families and objects to use in their homes.

I'm happy with the way things are. For me.

Dye job

Being a rug hooker is being a recycler. It fits very nicely with my personal philosophy of re-using and making do. There's nothing so satisfying as finding a new and unexpected use for something others would throw away.

The other day, I was reading Gene's blog about dirty salt and was inspired to try it, too.

When I mix the dye colors, I have to clean off the measuring spoons after each color. How I do it is to clean the spoon in a bag of kosher salt. Then I further clean it with a cotton swab. The bag of salt never got changed and just continued to take on the various colors. As his salt grew dirtier and dirtier, Gene was tempted to discard it. But instead, he dyed with it.

I thought: hey! I can do that, too. And I did. I used some white wool cloth that had very little texture. I scrunched the soaked wool in a casserole pan and just shook the salt mixture over it. Then I cooked it in the microwave. This is the result. I kind of like the birch tree look it has but of course that might be lost in hooking. It's also very earthy. Who knows what it's next life will be? It was fun playing, though.
Now I have to wait until I get another bag full of dirty salt. Could take a while.

Recycling

The jacket that came in our Christmas box is now on its way to becoming a rug. This is the journey every garment takes when I recycle it.

It takes about an hour and a sharp pair of scissors to separate the jacket into pieces. Then I wash the pieces in hot water and throw them in the dryer to full the fabric. I then cut the fabric into 1/4" strips. And I hook them into the burlap.

There's no design on this backing yet because I was impatient to see how the checks would hook up. I really like it - reminds me of a mountain stream: grays and browns like the rocks with a bit of pale green. I think I could hook a whole rug with this alone and it would look pretty good. Can't say that about every garment that comes my way.

So long, 2008!

I know there's been some days in 2008 that I'd rather not experience again but not many. There was a lot to celebrate, too. New babies, new houses, new jobs. We were both healthy, and wiser, if not wealthier.

Today, I'm blocking my last knitted item for the year. It's time to think about the New Year project. For many years now, I have made it my personal tradition to clear up the old year's knitting projects by December 31. Then I spend some time thinking about what I'd like to start. Of course, I usually start today but I count it as Jan 1. It will probably be some new socks. I have a design idea in my head and this is a perfect time to try it out. Nothing else on the horizon that needs to be made.

I will also probably draw out some coasters to hook. I won't start a new rug because I still have the quilt blocks to finish. If I put it away, I'll just be creating a UFO. Not something I can live with anymore. Bad enough I have to live with the UFO's that exist from before I started making the effort LOL

I have just finished the last book for 2008: The Other Side of the Bridge by Mary Lawson. When the book fell into my hands a few weeks ago, I read the jacket notes and thought "sounds interesting but probably a bit of a pot-boiler." Just shows that you shouldn't judge a book by it's dust jacket, either. It has turned out to be an outstanding read. I polished it off in 2 days - excellent characters and a gripping story line. It's set in northern Ontario with dual time lines: depression through WW2 and late 50's and 60's ending in the present. Four stars.

Which brings me to my last rant for the year: did any one else see the results of a little survey commissioned by Canadian Heritage? I was appalled by the weekly hours spent reading books for leisure or interest. So shocked that I can't really believe the numbers. Apparently, the weekly average for the university-educated is less than one hour per day. For retirees, just over an hour per day. So, who is buying all those books? When do they read them? Was this an off week for all the readers?

Apparently, about 22% of the books we read are by Canadian authors. And I think that was the real point of the survey. Now since it was a grant-giving body which commissioned the study, I'm not sure the results don't suit those government types. " See? Readers don't care about Canadian authors so why bother throwing money to them? " Or, could there be genuine concern? Hard to know but it's also hard not to think this was a self-serving survey. Of course, I don't think surveys are useful anyway. There are so many ways to crunch the numbers that you can prove any case you want from one. Merely interesting.

That's it. Last words for the year: may you have just enough challenge in 2009 to keep life interesting and may you have just enough of everything else to be materially satisfied.

Drip, drip, drip

What a pleasant sound the melting snow makes. Not that it won't take ages to actually disappear but it's a start.

Since I'm kind of tired of talking about the weather, I'll move on. The rug I was going to have finished by Christmas is still waiting. I think I'm going to take apart the basting of the squares since it's not holding as well as I had expected. Usually, when I add a piece of burlap, I do a fair bit of zig-zag stitching. I was a little lazy - and in a hurry - so I didn't do as much as I should have. And it's hard to hook around the stitching so I was trying to solve a lot of problems at once. Haste really does make waste.

And today was the first day since the 24th that I've actually picked up the knitting needles to finish the little hat I was working on. Just too busy with parties, people and that which will not be mentioned again. I have an order for more socks since my niece really liked the Diamond Lace pair I made for her. And maybe some more mitts since they seemed quite popular. I also have an enthusiastic request for a cable 'sweater' tea cozy. So, pretty busy needles for the next few days.

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.

Sampler rug

I've been waiting and waiting...

Way back in the year I started hooking 12 inch squares based on quilt blocks. These were for a swap and I thought it seemed like a really good idea. There were about 30 participants - the possibilities and combinations, endless. Well, that was then, as they say.

In the end, only 3 people actually submitted squares to swap. Since I submitted four blocks, I got two of my own back and two new ones and they're really nice. Opening the package on a rainy day and seeing the cheerful orange and golds, really perked up an otherwise gray day. I love the bear's paw pattern (I submitted one, too) and it's nice to get one back. If you look closely at the orange star, you'll see that it has some yellow-orange as well as dark orange...reminds me of candy corn.

Now I have the great fun - and challenge - of finding colors and other blocks to hook which will make this into a rug. That was my aim all along and I'm really looking forward to playing with my stash and looking up quilt blocks.

Finished

Here is 'Bass Lines'...all done, at last. Believe it or not, this is the best picture I can get today. I may try again tomorrow. The flash washed it out and when I didn't use the flash all I got was this. When I did a close-up I got a better color so I'm posting that photo, too. The rug is about 32 x 22 and I bound it with gray wool.

It seemed to take a long time to get to the binding which actually goes pretty quick once I start. I wonder what it is about finishing that I don't like? It's not just rugs...I hate doing up hems and sewing on buttons, too. And sewing up a knitted garment is such a chore. I'm a little better disciplined now than I used to be. I kind of force myself to finish one rug before I can start another. Designing new ones doesn't count, though.