Better Late Than Never

With all the visits to Doctors offices, Oncologist visits, hospitals, and emergency rooms last year, I had plenty of time to sit and do handwork. A lot of time to sit, and sit, and sit. I had decided to embroider our daughters all dish towels for Christmas. With 4 girls who all love coffee it was a fun and easy choice to make for the designs. I then chose colors to suit each daughter and one daughter-in-law-to-be.

After 12 dish towels I was tired of embroidery so I decided to teach myself to knit. I watched a YouTube video on making a dishcloth, had my daughter Jenny bring over the right size knitting needles, and she had some of the correct yarn, and I was on my way! There are so many wonderful cotton yarns out there so it was easy to find fun colors for each daughter. After 20 dish cloths I decided I'd made enough dish cloths and moved on to yoyos. But more on those later.

I then decided that aprons for each girl would be fun and perhaps some more towels, both done on the embroidery machine.

Well, with all the stress of the year of Cancer ( hubby is doing great, by the way!) and preparations for Christmas I realized I never got one single picture of all my work. Not one! Shortly after the discovery, I asked my daughter Shelly if she would get pictures for me. She finally got time to take the pictures...better late than never.

Here are Shelly's five dishcloths. She likes green and I love yellow.

These are the hand embroidered dish towels and the folded up apron that I did on the machine. The colors are brighter than they appear. Again. I had a blast picking colors for each girl. Jesse's apron had a red and black cup for her latte mug and matching colors for the rest of the gifts.

These are two of the recipe towels I did on the embroidery machine after I finished all the aprons.  I chose different recipes for each daughter too.

I truly had a blast making these for my girls. and they all had fun opening them. I wonder what I should get started on for this year!

Dyeing Wool for Woollin Rouge

When no one hears from me for a long time it is because of one of three reasons. I am either totally preoccupied with family, things such as illness or crazy lives, or my Fibromyalgia is really bad, or I'm really into something I love. As usual, it's been a little of all three, but the things I have been doing that I love involve wool.

 

Creating colors of wool for Woolin Rouge has been one of those things occupying so much of my time and I LOVE it.

 

I'm trying to come up with my own palette of wool that is specifically Woolin Rouge. Thankfully I have always understood color, hues, tints, and value so that helps.

When I have spent the day dyeing wool I feel like I've had a day at the spa.

 

 

One of the other things I've been doing to relax is hooking another rug. Joan Strausbaugh's Big Black Dog. I talked about it in my June 22, 2012 post.  I took a little artistic license and changed it just a tiny bit to look like my son's dog Buck. So far I have had a blast working on it. Thankfully it seems to be going much faster than the last two.

Back to the Studio to create some more wonderful wool!
P.S. It's really just my unfinished basement but I feel more special when I call it a Studio.


Angel of the Morning Rug Almost Finished!

I just love this adorable design by Beverly Conway! I finished hooking it last night. She still needs to be steamed and the edges whipped before I'm totally finished. It's sort of like a quilt. About the time you think you are finished, you still have binding to do.

I first saw this design on Pinterest and fell in love. I was obsessed with finding the designer of this quilt and after a long search for the pattern, with the help from very nice rug hookers, I finally found Beverly Conway's phone number.

Artistic license was taken just a tiny bit on the slippers. I only made some small changes to the bunny's face and eyes. Since it is my second rug, I had never hooked things like the face and hands. It was a little stressful but I think I did OK for the first one. I dyed the wool to match my skin and went a step darker and one pinker.

She is more of a self portrait than I could have created on my own. All the wool was hand dyed just for this project.

Thank you Pinterest for showing me this lovely lady, and thank you Beverly Conway for creating the design.

Messy Studio

I love this book cover. It reminds me so much of my day yesterday with my daughter Jenny. You see, I get completely overwhelmed with a mess like this and I have no idea where to start so I just keep playing tiddly winks, or in my case, sew. Jenny on the other hand, is Mother Bear. She jumps right in and takes control one step at a time. I can see where I want it to be when it's done, I just can't figure out where to start. I'm not a good organizer.

 

Jenny and I  always have such a good time when we work together like we did yesterday. It's so rare that we get to spend most of the day together and even though we were working, we were getting a lot of conversation in. 

 

I have come to the conclusion that I may never have my studio exactly the way I want it. My creative endeavors are aways changing and my studio needs to change with it, but hopefully soon it will be where I want it for this stage of my creativity.

 

 

Wool Dimensional Hydrangea Quilt

The wool applique hydrangea quilt I have been working on is finished! I am so happy with the results.The line on the right in the picture is a shadow of a pole.

The Daiwabo Taupes made the perfect background. I hand dyed the colors to the perfect soft shades I wanted. I've pictured how I wanted this quilt to look for quite awhile now and it turned out just like I pictured it in my head. I wish all things turned out that way.... I picture myself as a thin woman who looks 30 years old but it hasn't happened yet.

 

I showed it today at our sewing group and I've already sold one kit!! Now I need to get the pattern written and published. The kit will have the Diawabo Taupes and the hand dyed wool. I should add the Aurifil Lana Wool Thread I used for the appliques too.

 

Let me know what you think of the new Woolin Rouge Design.









Rug Hooking in Shell WY

Quite some time ago I asked my friend Jan Barnett if she knew anyone who knew how to hook rugs. Wyoming seems to be a remote area where rug hooking is concerned. Jan thought that a woman in Shell WY, named Patty Tyrell knew how and she would contact her. Being the impatient soul that I am, I found information on the Internet and taught myself how to hook thanks to wonderful people who record on places like YouTube. 

In September Jan announced that Patty would indeed teach a rug hooking class. When I saw the date I knew I couldn't go. I was so bummed. So.... Thursday I was on Rug Hooking Daily and decided to check the list of members to see if anyone from Wyoming belonged and guess who's name popped up. Yep, Patty's! I asked her how the class went and she said that it was canceled due to her mother-in-laws passing away and that the class was.....Saturday!  She invited me to come and I ended up bringing my hand dyed wool to sell.

The class was so much fun!! There were 11 women who came plus myself and everyone did such a fantastic job of hooking.

Later in the day Patty Tyrell, was able to sit down and hook along with us.

Here is Jan the instigator, not just of the class.... She is a blast to be around no matter where she is.
You can see some of my wool in the background.

Lori was our youngest member and the lady in back of her was the oldest. She mentioned she was 81. I wish I had her energy at my age NOW!

The kits were ordered from I Love Rug Hooking and I have to say the the colors were fabulous!

There were two tables of woman hooking but by the time I realized I should be taking pictures most of the other table had gone. We plan on getting together again. I have hopes that at least a few of us will continue to meet and hopefully even more will join in.

Hydrangeas in Wool

Here is a sneak peak of one of Woolin Rouge Designs newest creations. I have such a love of the Daiwabo Taupes that I just HAD to use them as a background for our new design. The design is pale but not quite as pale as it photographed. The hydrangea petals are dimensional. I hand dyed all the wool for this project so I can easily duplicate the wools for kits.

I must confess that I am a lot farther than this on the design than this but I don't want to show more until the big reveal.  Progress has been slower than normal for me lately because of my husbands needs due to the horrible disease cancer, but I'm hoping the worst is over and we are on our way back down the hill of horror.

Alan and I have had an amazing support group. Our children are beyond amazing and we have some of the most wonderful friends. We are truly blessed. I have been so thankful through all the Doctors visits, chemo sessions, hospital stays, etc., that I have had needlework to do to occupy my time and save my sanity. My days once a month sewing with my tiny sewing group would refresh my soul for the next round of medical sessions.  

Thank you all for your support and know that Alan is starting to mend and chemo is over. Our prayers are being answered.

Now let the creating begin!!