Notforgotten Flowers
Design by Lori Brechlin/Notforgotten Farm, adapted by Spruce Ridge Studios/Kris Miller
I hooked this fun, cheery mat many years ago when I first started adapting Lori's artwork into rug hooking patterns. Now flash forward to 2021....
A customer had ordered the larger size of Notforgotten Flowers and as I was drawing it, I made not one, but two stupid mistakes.
I have been drawing patterns for over 20 years....I could probably draw them with my eyes closed! haha! I am quite picky about having them straight so when I am drawing the outside border line, I always try to use a very fresh Sharpie with a nice sharp point. When the tip starts to jump the ditch, I know it's time to switch to a new marker. Sometimes a slub in the linen or a piece of lint will make the pen jump too. If the overdraw is just a small line, I feel there is no harm done. I correct the jumped line and keep going. I think we all understand that it happens sometimes and it doesn't affect the outcome. But when I drew out this pattern, my Sharpie jumped badly. In two spots. I tried to correct and made it worse. I thought it looked sloppy and I just could not send this pattern to the customer. So I drew another one that was pretty and perfect and without blemish.
Now, I will tell you that I HATE to waste linen. It is expensive. What was I going to do with this imperfect pattern? My choices were to discount the pattern price and sell it as an "oops" or to turn it over and draw a different pattern on the other side just for myself. But wait! I started thinking that I could hook this pattern again...but in all soft neutral tones. A little challenge to myself since I had already hooked the small version in a colorful palette.
I think I mentioned this in a previous blog post, but I started gathering up some textures that I considered "neutral," piled them up on my work table, and let them "stew" for a few days. I would walk by and glance at them throughout the day. Sometimes I'd find another piece of wool that I thought would work and threw it in the pile. Other times, I would eliminate a piece that would somehow seem out of place or just didn't catch my fancy anymore.
This is what my pile looked like. I had three piles for the three flowers in the pattern and there are multiple leaves to color plan too. The dark taupe-like texture that is scrunched up at the top of the picture was a candidate for the background, but I realized later that it was not dark enough for what my vision of the background should be, so I used it to hook the flower pot. A nice dark chocolate brown is working great for my background.
Even as I have been hooking, I have pulled some wool out and switched it to a different texture. But I think I am still on track with my goal to keep my mat in the neutral "neighborhood."
Here is the start of my rug and I am very happy with the progress so far! I am outlining all the objects with one row of my chocolate brown texture. This holds the shapes in place and gives me a good idea of how the background works with my other color choices. I am considering another brown texture to mix with my chocolate brown but will try it out later when I am hooking the rest of my background. I am so focused on hooking the flowers and leaves so I don't want to lose that mojo by filling in background right now. Stay tuned!
You can find the small pattern for Notforgotten Flowers here:
and here is the link for the larger pattern, which I am working on now:
