Learning New Things

I know I'll look back at what I made someday in the future and either want to die of embarrassment or wonder at the very least "what was I thinking"??????
This my friends is learning.
In a nutshell.

You gotta start somewhere, you gotta travel along a knowledge trajectory and it doesn't end.

Long story even longer?
Here we go.
I needed a poster.
Anything I've used in the past to create such a beast is no longer working on my computer system which is two steps behind as it is.

I thought longingly of the past when I could just whip up a cut and paste craziness and photocopy it and call it a day.

No this time, this poster needed to be available to all sorts of people to download and use.

WAHHHH. I said that because I love glue. But not with fabric, only with paper and the like and by the way have you travelled down the glue section in Staples lately? Glue has come into it's right adhesive place due to scrap booking. I was in heaven.

I realize just made the story longer didn't I ?
I better send you a pretty picture because of your sufferings.

This is a dyers triangle from my time travels to the 1800s, more about that in days to come.

And now back to what I learned.
I spent a very long time trying to figure out how to make this poster but I think it turned out OK. Let me know if you find it the least bit pleasing.
This, of course, is not the real card but a jpg of it, if you need the real one just let me know and I'll send it to you. I know you are keeping a scrap book on me titled I Knew Her When.... or is it called Case Study 409? You might need the poster for that.

It will get bigger if you click it, my butt has that option too.

I made a card too for distribution.

And today I made this movie preview of the Mat because there is no more trial thus sayeth my advisory counsel. Now you can see what up in there in case you feel like this:

"Curiosity", Eugene de Blaas

Take a look at the video or share it.

That's enough of non textile work, I'm off to dig my finger into some wool!

Looking for Patterns?

Have you heard there is a new place to get patterns?
Michele Velez has just opened up an online shop where we can find some new inspiration.

Here is one hooked up by Karen Whidden, I just love the way she dealt with the pegs, so simple yet effective and the call back to red (but they are all different) in the arrangement is lovely!

Shibori Dyeing From The Mat

Aren't these enough to brighten and cheer any day?
These are the dyeing of Debbie Schrang (top) and Lucy Richards (bottom) just a couple of the participants in my internal dyeing studio on the Mat. They just sent in their homework for checking and answers of they had questions.
Everyone is doing a fantastic job. I'm so proud. Lucy has this studio, go have a look.

From time to time I offer classes in The Welcome Mat at reduced prices for members on dyeing and hooking. I'll be starting a class in mid- October in my Wanda Works online dyeing studio ( open to everyone)  Look here for announcements.

Are you interested in the formulas I created from The Old Rug  series 1 and series 2? I'm using Majic Carpet dyes for these and you can purchase them here. They make fantastic flesh tones.

Bright Colours Dyed over Tan

Tips For Achieving Rich and Beautiful Over dyeing

Just using bright colours out of the envelope or jar and dyeing them over light to medium tan makes some wonderful colours for rug hooking, you can try doing this with grey as well for a different effect.

Gray works well to keep cool colours in their home families, blue stays blue and does not turn green blue.
Over tan warm colours stay put in their colour families. Yellow stays yellow and does not turn green.

You CAN hook with anything

An expose on my hooking style this video proves you can hook with anything, but the other reasonable question you should ask is: is it looking like I want when I hook it in? Does it do the work required visually?
Product placement is NOT an endorsement, just a sad little bi-weekly habit.

More Formulas From Old Rugs

This is the offering for today!

I'm having more fun than a barrel of monkeys doing these!!!

And the irony is I dyed them in the microwave.
Kicking the old school - new style!

Pulling The Colours From OLDE Rugs

I had so much fun doing this column on The Mat last week!

I'm going to be writing an article for RHM on this, we scheduled it a couple of years ago. I'll be talking about how to do it, so look out for it. It was fun to play on the dull side! 

And this week I'm using this rug for my Dyeing Matters column:

I dyed every colour but the reds.

Once finished they were the colours of my cats!!!  I just had to laugh. Even Boy Bootsie was included.

I guess I won't have trouble naming those colours.

By the way what in the HE double hockey sticks is going on the that first rug?

If you can hazard a guess let me know.

Best News

We were talking about favourite things last week on the Mat.
Mine were Relique so much fun to look at all that stuff ... love reading what it was used for and I love the colours.... mostly zinc gray and rust! Sounds like a good bunch of formulas might be cooking up in the back of my brain from here.


And a book of course.

 It is long out of print, expensive even for me who had never met a boundary about how much to pay for a great information book .... but this one is way out of range.

Now the happiest news in the world is you can read this book and all the books this author wrote online.

Andrew Loomis - Creative Illustration, that's my favourite.

It is a treasure trove.

And then one of my dear members told me this book was being re-issued in October.  Now I can sleep with it! 

I tell you I almost peed my pants. October cannot come fast enough.

The Resurection- Sharing From the Colour Lab

Rug Hooking and Outlines - More Pretty Girls than One.

With the kind permission of my good and faithful colourists in the Colour Lab, The Welcome Mat's  subscription online colour course, I'm sharing August's lesson with you here.

In these lessons I draw attention to and reveal how finding out about and knowing certain things about colour can make better hooking, hookers and at very least one who knows how to fix their own colour problems.

The best thing to remember? There are more choices than you might think, there are more pretty girls than one!

Here it is, feel free to do your rendition(s) of this assignment if you want. Use it for your rug group, please give full credit though.

Outlines

As a rug hooker sometimes our projects require us to make soft edges and other times we need a hard edge. But there is so much interplay between these two with colour it is hard to know what colour tool to use to outline for these effects.

Wondering where you might need a soft edge and where a hard edge might be more useful?

I'm still learning about this but I realized there was something damn crazy about this rug I made.

I realized last year after it came home to me from travelling, it was an edge issue. My face has very soft edges, but the background has hard edges ( open water). Oops! I should be in sharper focus but I'm not and it is making a dip and dive effect, what's in front doesn't look as distinct as what's behind. ( if you squint it will, try it!) In particular the open water should not be so hard edged and could do with a softening effect with additional mottling though some is present.

I should start calling it my puzzle rug, you gotta puzzle out where to look!! LOL

Often we want to soften a colour to lead to another, like in a sunset. A very bright yellow segueing into a softer orange... or we may need the top edge of a forest look feathery, you can do it with one fell swoop by choosing the good colour to outline with.

I'm going to switch the language now too, I'm not going to use the word outline because it brings up circumstances when we just plug some wool in a line to separate something from another. I'm not talking about the outline of the last resort. I'm thinking about the beautiful seductive choice of colour as you hook to lead the eye into the atmosphere you wish to show. I'll use the word lining just for this exercise so we remember we are exercising something entirely new.

No matter what kind of hooker we are or hooking type we practise we all need to use lining well.

Here I have made you an sampler with yellow as my colour to line.

Each block represents a new "style" of lining.

The whole has been hooked with nylons but that was due to using my scraps and the heat, you can do this with wool or any medium, the effect will remain the same.

Square 1

has yellow outline with its complementary color, violet.

An area of colour will most often appear stronger, vibrant when surrounded by the complement.

(As an extra bonus task for discovery, try using light purple, duller purple and see what ensues) We do not use this effect much with rug hooking.

Square 2

has a black outline and it creates both a jewel like quality to the colour yellow and makes a strong "fence" around it. It contains the colour keeping it well separated. We see this in stained glass.

Square 3

has a white outline. The edges are not contained at all because white is close to yellow in value but aside from that it just lets the colour run out, it will take on colour from around it. It will make darker colours appear smaller.

This is a great trick for reflective qualities like glass and mirrors, water and all sunlit things. We seldom use this type of lining in rug hooking.

Square 4

has a darker value of yellow outline, this is creating a soft edge, can you see it? We can do with more of this lining too. It can create a glowing centre and allow the lighter centre to ease into the background making for soft edges. It can define your central colour more.

Square 5

has a lighter value line. You can see it provides emphasis for the centre colour and allows it to expand but not be so bold. It softens too. It can soften your centre colour if the effect of it is too strong.

Square 6 

has no line so you might compare effects.

 Your assignment

Here is what I want to see hooked:

7 well spaced one colour blocks

Line them as I did.

Complement Line

Black Line

White Line

Darker Value Line

Lighter Value Line

Brighter Line

Duller Line

The last 4 should use the same colour family as the centre colour please.

Surround all blocks with one of the three medium values from the gray scale to make a panel.

Don't worry about precision in hooking, as you can see, I didn't care.

Object of this lesson:

To understand the cause and effects of a plethora of outlining. To learn how to deliberately test out outlining to discover which effect will be most useful to you.

To help you help yourself.

Of course there is much to explore in this lesson but I've left that info off out of respect for my Colourist's commitment to this class.

Hook long and in deliberate colour!

BTW If you are interested in taking part in the Colour Lab, 13 lessons on the effective and artistic use of colour in rug hooking, a year long colour course of study with tons of interplay between you and I, write me. It changes how you hook.

Ps  Mary... she ate her babies.

Thea had hers, Mary has only managed a lick so far.

I sewed an amazing collection of garments this summer.

I dug my artistic retreat class, what beautiful things arose!

I dug my enrichment class, ended up being much enhanced myself.

We Wiarton hookers are astudying this fall and winter. Two Thursday for hooking and two for true classes- right now punch hooking. We are using the patterns you have access to when you join the Welcome Mat. We are undergoing terrific changes there to follow our hearts, to create a studio environment for woolworkers for artistic and creative growth. Where you ask questions and we answer.

Ok this is possibly the longest blog post and PS ever written. I guess I'll end by saying I'm back blogging come hell or highwater. Hold onto your hats. And for goodness sake comment from time to time so I don't mistake this blog for a black hole, I get so confused.

PPS If you go to the Welcome Mat you can no longer see what up on there. it has gone private.

No longer visible from outer space. Also of interest, no more preview during a free month. There is pure gold in there, you gotta pay to look at anything good and it is great due to my members!

Pillow Talk

Each week on The Welcome Mat I have a dyeing column called Dyeing Matters. If you enjoy my articles in RHM, Colours to Dye For,  you will love this column, I'm present and able to answer any questions you have.

Writing Dyeing Matters I use some visual aide to inspire colours to dye.
I took the summer off because dyeing in the summer heat is not my idea of a fun time.
I'm back at it now with a series I'm calling Pillow Talk.
Inspired by home decor accent pillows I'm coming up with some great colour sets to spark our rug hooking.
One nice thing about this inspiration, there aren't many formulas available for use that are fresh and in vogue.
It is fun to bring these new colours twists into our current colour array.

In the past I've concentrated on the colours of Emily Carr- a whole months worth, William Morris also a months worth, Norman Rockwell, a month of sky colours, and arrays of many other inspiring visuals.
It is fun to match up the colours I see to the Majic Carpet dyes.

This fall I'll be selling these formulas in collections with samples. Watch here for this announcement.