Saturday, December 26, 2009

Diary of a Rug --- Final Chapter

Yesterday was a wonderfully laid-back Christmas...we opened gifts and sat around in our jammies all day. The goats and sheep got apple treats and the dog got some extra scraps in her dish. Basically, we all did what made us happy. I did a lot of rug hooking and finished my Harvest Goode Things rug! Here are pictures and tips to share:

I decided that I wanted to dig into my scrap piles to hook the pumpkins instead of cutting into fresh pieces of wool. The pumpkins are small and I wanted to vary the colors a little so they were not all the same. I found some orange scraps and also a light green heather for "white" pumpkins. I had to mindful of color value since the ground is such a medium neutral tone (it tends to make other similar values sink and fade away). I needed to outline each pumpkin so the accent lines would give some shape and definition, and they wouldn't just look like orange balls. I found some nice outline wool in my scraps but a lot of my scraps are cut in #8. I outlined and filled the first pumpkin with some of these #8 cuts. However when I was done, I thought the outline was too thick and overpowered the pumpkin too much. So I ripped out the outline and hand-trimmed it to a smaller size (more like a #6). Once I hooked it back in, the difference was astonishing! So all the pumpkins ended up with #6 outlines and then filled with #8 strips. Once each pumpkin was hooked, I put a line of the ground wool around it to hold its shape. Finally, when all had been hooked, I went back and filled in the entire ground area....
Voila!
The
rug
was
done!

(drum roll, please!)
*
*
*
The finished rug:

Now mind you, I consider this rug "done" even though it hasn't been steamed or hemmed yet....Some of you who know me (wendy!) know that I'm a "professional pinner" and tend to avoid hemming until it is absolutely necessary.
Hemming is just not creative....
don't ask me to explain my bad habit any more than that.
Maybe there's a New Year Resolution evolving here....

9 comments:

Cathy G. said...

Very very wonderful rug Kris! You can finish it I know! Thank-you for sharing the whole process with us. I picked up some things I didn't know as a fairly new rug hooker myself! Well done! Cathy G

aprilmecheelesdulllife said...

I have been waiting to see this finished. I love it !!!

Mary said...

Kris, I love how your rug turned out!!! And what a fun process. So glad you shared. I do hope you'll consider doing a diary of a future project!!! Hope you have a happy new year!

denise said...

i love your rug. that's the next thing on my list to learn hoe to.

Deb said...

I just love your rug!!! This is one of the first things I want to learn to do in 2010!!

Kris Miller said...

Hi Deb,

I'd be happy to give rug hooking classes on a week-day too but I'd have to have enough people sign up. Right now there is only one other gal who wants a week-day. If I can get 4 people, we'll have a class.

Got3BagsWool said...

Kris,
I have a rug from six years ago that I haven't done the binding on and a few others from the last couple years....BIG rugs....that will be done this week as I want to show them at a show next weekend in Asheville. Laura

JoJo said...

Kris, this turned out beautifully. I love it and want to thank you for doing this as a tutorial. I love to learn.

Anonymous said...

Your rug turned out gorgeous..