Rug Of The Day - Trout

Trout - hooked by Kris Miller

Pattern designed by (c) Keith Kemmer

monks:  $70.00

linen:  $86.00

dimensions:  54" x 20"

I hooked this rug for my husband back in 2001.  He told me that this was a brown trout and gave me some visuals to help with the colors.  This was one of my first attempts at trying to dye wool to match a picture.  I was still very much a newbie and it took many pots of yellow dye to finally get the yellow values that satisfied me.  I used #4-#6 cuts for the entire rug.  If I were to hook this now, I would definitely use much wider cuts for the water since there is a lot of area to cover!  There are a lot of little circles on this fish...I was certainly glad to get all of them hooked so I could move on to filling in the rest of the body.

I was in Baton Rouge last week, teaching at the Red Stick Rug Camp.  The weather was a balmy 72 degrees for most of the week and I enjoyed the sun and seeing the flowers blooming.  My class was so much fun!  Everyone worked very hard and got a lot of hooking done.  Kelly was one of my students and she decided to hook the Trout pattern.  She chose some very non-traditional colors for her fish, which I told her were completely "out of my box" but we were going to make it work.  Kelly is an artist and a lovely hooker so her fish was looking outstanding on the last day of class.  She sent me an email last night with her progress.  I think it is wonderful and I might add that she works quite fast!