Tuesday, July 21, 2020

Rug Of The Day - Cocoa and Cookies Alphabet Sampler

Cocoa & Cookies Alphabet Sampler
Adapted from the artwork of Lori Brechlin/Notforgotten Farm
Hooked by Kris Miller

I made this large rug many years ago and it is still one of my favorites, even though I don't display it very much.  I learned a lot when hooking this rug, so I think of it as my "discovery" rug.  It was one of the first projects where I had to hook a lot of letters so I learned to hook one letter at a time and immediately hook one row of background around the letter before moving on to the next one.  
I also learned a little about color planning with textures.  The background is a medium beige plaid with subtle lines of maroon and purple.  Medium value backgrounds can be hard to work with because they want to "suck" the color out of all the other medium values in the rug.  I had to make sure I chose colors that were strong enough to hold up.  The snow was hooked with the same khaki plaid that I used in Midnight Clear but do you notice what I did?  Just along the horizon line, I had to put one row of a little bit darker value than the wool I used for the background.  This was to lift and separate the snow from the background to define it better.  I call it a "bridge" between the two.  Without the bridge, they would have blurred together. 
Here's another tip for color planning when you are using textures and plaids for your background:  Look at the colors that compose your plaid.  In this example, there were lines of maroon and deep purple.  By using similar colors in the lettering, my color plan was effortless because the colors were already friends and worked together.  I mixed up the shades of maroon and deep red and eggplant so that all the letters were not the same (too boring) but I DID hook groupings of letters in the same colors so they weren't so scattered and random.  You could highlight certain letters by hooking them in the same colors...my initials are KLM so I chose to hook those the same.  Sort of a subtle message that only I would find (and now you know too!)
The words on the ground were hooked with the same rusty red as the saltbox house on the left.  Since they are located in an entirely different background, that works great, and they are still friends with everyone else.

One last note about my rug...I believe Lori's artwork showed a redware plate and mug so that is what I chose to depict.  Mr. Snowman is waiting for his winter treat!  But I have seen some people replace the plate with a gigantic cookie and I think that is simply charming!  Isn't rug hooking great?  We can all create our own interpretation and come up with inspiring rugs!

You can find the Cocoa & Cookies Alphabet Sampler here:

There is also a smaller version without letters for those of you who don't want a large project or the stress of hooking a lot of letters.
Paula Russell from New York hooked the smaller one.  She hooked a chocolate chip cookie and I think her rug is fabulous!

The great thing about this design is that it is not specifically a Christmas rug so you can enjoy it all season long!

1 comment:

Saundra said...

You sneaky smart one hooking your initials all the same color. Lucky you those were the sequence of the alphabet.