Diary of a Rug --- Part 2

The last time I talked about my Harvest Goode Things project, I discussed color and wool choices for the flowers, leaves, and stems. I also hooked a little of the background wool around the flowers. This holds their shapes and also gives me a general idea of how the background color is going to relate to the other colors I have chosen. So far, I liked the way everything was coming together so I was ready to proceed on to another area of the rug.

I decided that I wanted to hook the house next. I'm going to start with the roof, and therefore the lettering on the roof has to be hooked first and then the roof colors will be hooked in around the letters. Several decisions had to be made...first of all, I wanted a dark brown roof and a red house. I had a great red plaid for the house and found the perfect brown windowpane plaid at Sauder Village. The plaid has some colored threads running through it, one of the threads is blue...cool...it fits right into my "blue theme"! The brown plaid acts like a chameleon wool...in some light it looks brown and in other light, it has a green tint to it. I liked the fact that it wasn't your typical chocolate brown. After deciding on the brown roof, I needed to pick out a color for the lettering. Since I have a "blue" theme running through some of my wools, I decided that I'd like blue lettering. I don't want these letters to jump out too much so I was looking for a subtle blue. I have to be careful of value, as well. I don't want the blue lettering to fade away into the brown roof.

At first, I picked this Blueberry plaid. I've used it before and it hooks up to look like denim. I thought the color would work nicely on my brown roof. I want the letters to look nice and crisp so I cut the wool in a #8. I thought #8.5 would be a little bit too chunky.
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After I got the first letter hooked in, I worked some of my brown roof wool around the letter to hold its shape. Guess what? I found out that the Blueberry plaid looked too bright up against the brown! I wanted something that was not going to "sing" too loudly...so it was back to my wool stash to look for something different.....

Here's a plaid with a completely different color scheme. It does have some blue, but also some olive green and a bit of orange. I began to think that I might be able to play with the plaid by cutting it and then separating the colors. Hopefully this one isn't going to "sink" into my brown roof.

I posted this picture so you could see the brown roof wool and the colors for the letters.On the right is the Blueberry Plaid and on the left is my second choice, the blue and olive plaid. It's pretty evident by this picture that the Blueberry Plaid is just too bright and stands out a little too much!

Here's my lettering with the blue and olive plaid. I played with separating the colors in the plaid, hooking a few of the letters with the olive, but made most of them with the blue part of the plaid. I like the way this looks...the letters stand out but seem a little faded. I did hook the letters in a #8 and then hooked around them with the brown, also cut in a #8. Then I ended up hooking the whole roof in a #8 cut...I'm not sure why I did that, I guess I just kept grabbing the #8 strips and filled it in. In hindsight, I think I would have just outlined the letters in a #8, and then filled in a #8.5. Too late now, I'm not going to pull out what I've done. You can certainly mix all kinds of cuts in your rugs and it won't make any difference. I'm just not going to worry about it.

I will sit down tonight and hook some of the letters in the sky with blue/olive plaid. I'll make sure to hook some background around each letter. Again, this will hold the letters in place and I can double check to see that I like the way the background and the olive/blue plaid are relating to each other. Then I will focus my attention on hooking the house itself. As you could see in the previous picture, I did hook the chimney and I like the way that looks, so I'll continue with the red plaid. I want to hook directionally, straight across the house with the red plaid. In order to make my straight hooking a little easier, I used my background wool to outline around the house. When you do this, you have to hook outside the line of the house. Then you have a "holding" line, a starting and ending point for your ends.
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Now there are some other decisions to be made....what color shall I use for the windows? The door? The dividing line at the corner of the house? You'll just have to wait for the next "Diary of a Rug" chapter!