Ghost Genie

Last October, I hosted and also taught a class at the Historic Franklin Rug Hooking Retreat in Franklin, Tennessee. My students were really quite wonderful....and very understanding, since I was splitting some of my time with the administrative end of running a rug camp.  My husband and my sister took a lot of the burden off of me, however, and I am forever grateful for that!

One of my students wanted to hook Ghost Genie, which is a design that is adapted by the whimsical folk art of Johanna Parker.  Johanna was born on Halloween and I have to say that she is the "Queen" of Halloween, too!  Her original design uses the traditional Halloween colors of orange and black.

But my student requested no orange in her color planning.  

"What could I do?" I thought to myself. 

Not even an orange pumpkin?

So I thought "Aha! Purple!"

I dyed up some textured woolens in several different values of purple.  I also had an as-is texture that was lighter purple so I thought that it would work for the background.  I couldn't think of anything else but a green pumpkin and I especially love those dusky bluish-green pumpkins like the picture below.  Apparently this one is called a Jarrahdale pumpkin, an heirloom variety from New Zealand.

Lucky for me, Marion loved my color suggestions and she was off to the races!  She hooked A LOT during our rug camp and had an impressive amount hooked by the time we did the "throw-down" on the last day of camp.

It was turning out just the way I had envisioned it but honestly, Marion's lovely hooking style made this rug shine and it was one of the favorites at the rug camp.

Just recently, Marion emailed me a picture of her finished rug.  

The green pumpkin is superb and I love how she used the same green for the dots in the scrolls.  It marches the color around the rug and adds that special spark to make it interesting.

"I absolutely love it" she wrote.  

Wow, I love it too!!!

Just a P.S. about the ice storm I mentioned in my last post....we never got the tons of ice like the weatherman predicted but we did get TONS of rain.  We thought it had affected the pump on our well but upon inspection from the well company, we had a leak or break in the main pipe supply to our house.  The pipe was cemented into our foundation and the water was leaking somewhere in the cement.  Ugh.  So we had to have a major re-route of the pipe line which involved drilling into the foundation and floor.  I did not start my Give Ye Thanks rug after all but it is still waiting for me.  I have a different rug on my frame in the meantime...but that is a story for another post.

Have a great week-end!