Monday, March 29, 2021

Rug of the Day - Notforgotten Flowers

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:





 

3 comments:

NMK said...

What a difference with the subdued colors , will look nice & prim . I like how you are using the darker brown to outline with ....a good tip to know . Look forward to seeing it all finished !!

Rugs and Pugs said...

Your oops pattern is going to be beautiful!

Saundra said...

That is a perfect "lemonade" story and now you've two versions to tease double the shoppers. Bet I'd like the subdued colors better myself. Don't ya just hate it when the dang Sharpie jumps the ditch???