Saturday, November 21, 2020

Rug Of The Day - First Heavy Snow

Rug of the Day is back!  Here's what is on my frame right now:

First Heavy Snow
Designed by Faye Schilling/Cabin Creek Designs
Available exclusively through Spruce Ridge Studios
Hooking in progress by Kris Miller

Every time I drew up this pattern for an order, I thought "Wow, this is SO cute...I need to hook this myself."  Then, last week, someone posted a picture of their completed rug on Facebook and that was the tipping point for me.

I love how I can "dress up" each snowman (or lady!) in their own winter attire...it's so fun to decide on which textures would make the best knit hats and scarves!  The best part is that each little hat or scarf doesn't take much wool so I can sort through my scraps and use up some of them without cutting into a big piece.

I don't often do this when hooking a rug, but I started working on the border first and then decided to work from one end of the rug to the other.  You see, I wanted to fool around with the border and try out a Christmas plaid that I had in stock.  I have to admit, I wasn't convinced that I was going to like the way the plaid hooked, so I added one row of red and green beading to the first inside row, then I "auditioned" the Christmas plaid by hooking several rows next to the beading.  When the plaid was cut into strips, it sort of gave me a selection of red strips and green strips so I made a plan in my head to stagger the red and green strips when they were hooked in rows next to each other.  It dispersed the colors a bit better and made it more of a hit-or-miss kind of feel (whew, are you following me on this?). 
So the verdict is in!  I LOVE, LOVE the Christmas plaid and I'm going to keep the beading too.  Sometimes there are places where the beading fades into the Christmas plaid but I love it that way and I'm not going to change a thing! So now it's on to the rest of the rug!  

A few observations:  
Since there are many small details in this runner, I have had to use a wide variety of cuts. The border is #8.5 cuts, the background is #8.5 and #8 cuts, the snowmen are also a combination of #8.5 and #8 cuts.  However, the carrot noses are a #6, as well as the stick arms, and the eyes are a #4 cut (I found a little bundle of #4 cut black strips that I had set aside - I have no idea why I cut them that small in the first place but they have come in handy now!)

I also have scraped together various shades of primitive "white" for the snowmen, since there are a bunch of them.  I may do some outlining for the ones that overlap and I can repeat some of the lights.  Three or four shades of "snow" is a good variety, I think.

I have taken a little break from hooking since October...I picked up my knitting needles and I'm working on a blanket for my granddaughter and need to start knitting a Christmas stocking for my grandson. Sometimes my hooking urge becomes so great that I have to put down the knitting needles for a day or two, but with this wonderful variety of fiber arts, I will never be bored or regret having to stay at home. Bring on the first heavy snow!

You can find the First Heavy Snow here:

If you feel the runner is a bit too big, there is also a smaller pattern that features just three snowmen and a tree:

And you can find the marvelous Christmas plaid here:








 

2 comments:

NMK said...

This is Adorable & Love how you hooked your border !!!

Rugs and Pugs said...

So sweet and your border is pure genius ;-)