Genteel Rug Hooking!

Here at WandaWorks we like to position ourselves just so while hooking!

Knees together, serious as hell, heads down. 

Hooking.

Grand isn't it?

Green Glorious Green

I asked my people and they spoke, please more green formulas!  Here are the results of this week's Dyeing Matters column on The Welcome Mat.  Cushings on the bottom, Pro Chem to the right and Majic Carpet to the left.  Isn't wool grand?

Heartful Handful

I'm so thankful for rest days.

I'm so grateful to know how to crochet properly.

I'm grateful for the way I can imagine how creations will look finished before I start them.

Today I was inspired by this skeletal remain:

from here

And this thought from Roald Dahl

I'm creating a long sweater coat for Aimee using wandered yarn as trim on an down sized upcycled cashmere sweater.

Birdee is helping!

Heartful Handful & Hooking

A little lapse in my heartful journey, please excuse me.

I was fixing on this:

Looks pretty quiet on it's linen ground doesn't it?

Gotta flatten the top a bit at the back and give her a longer front on the middle star line.

*****

Am I glad for laughing? You bet! It is such good medicine!

I'm so grateful to Story Corp for their inspiring glimpse into the spirited, authentic lives of others.

I'm saved daily by the beacons of intelligence, laughter and light my podcast subscriptions shine into this grey world that is Ontario in November.

I saw this from here and was heartened I have everything I need to do this:

The antithesis of grey.

I saw this and was impaired by love for awhile.

But I've recovered just now.

Here is what I fashioned: a smattering of dye upon wool in the wandering wanda way.

Triplet Treat.

A Video for Dyeing Light Colours and a Lesson for you from The Welcome Mat

Enjoy making a range of wonderfully light colours for your wool.

Every Sunday on The Welcome Mat we have a regular segment called New Skills Monday.This is just one of the amazing things available on the Welcome Mat every week. The latest new skill was this video and accompanying lesson below, we all hope you can use this for your own dyeing work.

Dyeing Snow or Light Colours

This is a terrific way to start to dye. 

If you haven't dyed before this is fast, fun and easy.

If you have dyed before, try making some really fun snow.

If you like this press the like button!

If you have something to add please do so.

If you are happy and you know it clap your hands.

Materials and equipment

1/2 yd or 1/4 yd ( would be done in an 9 x13 " pan) wool

hot water and surfactant like Jet dry or shampoo or synthropol in a sink

1 flat pan as in a roasting pan or buffet pan ( that's what I used)  or for 1/4 yd a cake pan ( 9 x13")

measuring cups

acid as in citric or vinegar ( add vinegar to the dye formulas) 

oven

boiling water

measuring utensils

Possible Dye Colours  to use

I like to either make warm , cool or neutral snow which contain both warm and cool and I believe I never make it the same way with the same colours twice.

Like flesh all colours can go into snow.

You need to consider the snow you will be depicting.

Maple sugar bush snow with some melt and dirt showing, use some browns with the dull grey and violet.

January freeze? Look to use lots of cool colours, like violets, blues and greens.

Is the sun shining on your snow? I say using orange and violet, blue and well just like what we made in this video. It is fun to make really warm snow with caramel and maple sugar and a little golden pear with teal, these are all pro chem colours, they make great old fashioned snow.

Sunset? 

This is the time you can use a little red violet in your other colours of snow.

Method

Wet your wool in the hot water and surfactant.

Crinkle your wool wool up into the pan fairly evenly

Sprinkle citric acid over your wool.

Mix up each colour you will use in it's own cup, using 1/4 cup of boiling water and filling it up to one cup with cool water.* 

Pour over each colour in an winding S pattern - just give 'er, he who hesitates is lost!

Don't jostle or start riffling through the mountains and valleys of wool, white spots are good in snow!

Pop it in the oven, cook for 25 minutes at 350˚F

Rinse well, dry as you wish, cut 'er up and get hooking!

* If you are dyeing over 1/4 yd of wool using this much dye might make your snow rather dark for snow.  Try using a 1/4 of a toothpick, dampened in the same manner as the chop stick.

Heartful Handful #13

Today I loved working with my sewist protege Meghan. She is in grade 8. She dreams up her creations and we solve the problems together to get there. Collaboration is enriching.

I love the way a piece of ribbon trim can remake a t shirt. And how it makes a new statement out of something old and cast down.

I'm always glad for interesting problems to solve.

AND

Terry Dorr called me and said they have made a great new wool flannel product with a metallic thread  in it. 

I await it's arrival, meanwhile you can call to get some. There is gold and natural wool and silver in natural wool. I like called it The Lurex.

In my 10 minutes today I worked on this, still some improvements to be mastered, a WIP.

Tomorrow I will get up in the morning and conquer this seed pod.

I was inspired by the colours in this print:

From Marcy Tilton

And by this Street Styles of France pin board web site,  also lead to by Marcy Tilton's Newsletter, real people and their outfits! Very Entertaining! Mood Look

 Apparently many people's legs have been replaced by broomsticks. hmmm.

Anything goes if you have attitude!

Heartful Handful # Several

Whew, it is hard to keep on top of things when I'm offline!

I'm glad to be back posting my "fuls"

Today I'm grateful for sunshine, I awoke with tremendous energy. Solar powered.

I was thrilled to see my outdoor menagerie joining me for breakfast.

It is ridiculous to say so but this "found" extra hour, I feel just divine about it, like I've somehow tricked Father Time into giving the treasure to me he spends so rapidly. I'm going to hoard it.

From 

http://afondlesballons.blogspot.fr/2011/04/cheche-de-printemps.html

  But with wool of course.

I pretty much want to do this with all my shoes

What I created 

A lovely gathering of grey from formulas for the Welcome Mat and for my $30 Wandering Wool Dye Class 

You can join both if you like - go here

Dear Rug Hooker - How to build a useful stash of wool colours

You might wonder where I fell off the edge of the world, where I am in my heartful  handful movement... well I was off line involuntarily and will catch up with you tomorrow on that subject.

Someone asked me awhile ago and then again today on the Welcome Mat, how to build yourself a good stash, I'd thought I'd share my reply with you in case you want to know too.

You can substitute the word buy for dye!!

When we begin to dye we often do direct dyeing, a set of wool for a certain project.

This is good.

I found I couldn’t always anticipate my needs. I thought something might be right but it wasn’t. I tried another approach, the built stash!

 What decisions do we need to consider if we want a delicious toothsome pile of wool with loads of depth and usefulness ?

 It is sort of like buying an outfit, you need to create wardrobe staples that can be used in many ways.

 For the studio I make all colours in the 12 colour wheel, plus browns, plus neutrals.

I make wanderings and spots, and marbleizing, crazy casserole and unusually dyed pieces like shibori or water colour dyeing. I have a wide array of over dyed and as is textures too.

I’m also supplying a selection of people with vastly ranging needs.

I don’t use spot dyes myself anymore, at least not the conventional ones and if I were you, I would take into consideration what types of dyed wool you feel most comfortable using. Those are the types you will make.

If you tend toward duller colours, make more of those. Be careful to always create a range of values. If you need to butt green in a tree next to blue in a sky you will be a sorrowful puppy if those two wools are the same saturation and value, it will turn that section of your rug into a no-see-um!

So here is what I would try to do if I wanted to dye an amazing magical stash.

 Dye all colours from around the colour wheel, have three values of each, have a bright, a very dull and a one at 50% saturation, neither bright nor dull. I would have a very dark one and a very light one. That means you will have about 8 selections from each colour. Probably making a quarter yd

of most of them and a ½ yd of a few will be good. I like to also have one each of something that is turning toward the next colours in the wheel to make a blender colour. If I was making yellow, I would have one slightly warmer , more orange and one slightly cooler, more greenish. If it was blue I'd also add in one that is a little more purple but not blue violet and one that is a little more green but not blue green.

 You must and I repeat must have some of the colours you dislike. Say orange is your least favorite or purple, you need to create some of those even if you don’t want them. If you love the colour blue and it plays a big role in your rug making then nothing will make your blues stand at attention like a

little orange, red brown and rust.

If you can anticipate what you might be making, say a scene of a sheet on the clothesline during a snowstorm… you will need lots of whites. If you followed my advice you will have arrange of very lights to draw on from each colour as well as a range of “blacks”.

If you are depicting water or sky, you will need more blues (always add black to blue for the best knocking back to sane of those bright blue dyes).

I come from the more is more school, I’m not too likely to make a sky say using a yard of the same stuff. I might have 12 related colours I'm mixing and blending to create it. Free yourself to use your wool in this expansive way.

PS One must have the bandaid of colours that goes with most any rug palette - teal, make some of that. A recipe -  3 parts turquoise or blue green to one part black. Let your part ( tsp) measure vary as you need values. Use a 1/28th spoon over a 1/2 yd for a light colour or a teaspoon for a very dark one over 1/2 yd.

I hope this helps.

Heartful Handful 8 and 9

Day 8

I was very grateful for a brisk walk in the woods, seeing hundreds of coin shaped and coloured poplar leaves, the only pennies we have now.

I was happy to go grocery shopping and stock up but shouldn't have gone before breakfast. I was excited to buy a good heavy bag of Cara Cara oranges, my one true orange love.

I'm "bed talker" I just love yapping at night as I go to sleep and Man indulged me. If he would read me a story I would be right indulged.

I was inspired by this artist. The plastic one made me tear up for his inventiveness.

Fabian Oefner

And by the sound of this:

Glen Hansard - Come away to the water

As I cooked our fantastic dinner.

I made this:

a test pattern for a pin cushion and I have a pin in my mouth hence the stranger than normal expression, hence the need for an exquisite pincushion.

Day 9

Grateful for SUNSHINE

Love the dyeing of wool

LOVE wood heat

I was inspired by 

my new formulas  I dyed for my  Welcome Mat dye column, the article is called:

"Aren't 9 shades of grey enough?" and I know there are 10 there, just wanted to show how they work as a lighter version, and might I say splendido. Makes me want to WRITE A DAMN BOOK.

I used cushing, pro chem and majic carpet dyes.

And 

The Aryballos Owl in the Louvre

I wish I had him to look at when I did my owl instead of the coin.

And I made my other fingerless glove and sewed them both up, yes more then 10 minutes but once I get parked for making, well you know yourself it is hard to put down.

Now it is time for all good pets to get walked!

I typed that while wearing my gloves.

I left the energy in the wool and it is very nice, like a therapeutic glove, it is very elastic and forms to your hand. A girdle without the circulation constriction. Yes my hands need a fricking girdle, don't yours?

Have a good night!

This post has been sponsored by The Welcome Mat where new recipes for all dyes are made each week and archived.

What are you missing?

Heartful Handful Movement Day 7

Today I was so happy to leave this house and buy terrific things like honey and carrots and brussel sprout and some GF cheese buns. What a treat not to have to make these buns myself.

I'm grateful for the invention of  a "london fog" 

Leftovers are a gift straight from God - that I know.

I'm inspired by GRAY - I know it is sick sick sick and I probably look sick sick sick wearing it and you are sick sick sick of seeing so much of it outside as we approach the grayest of months.

But lookit!

Or even these

The names are pretty good too.

I was also inspired by 

Man refused his naming, probably a sign he's a real one. Just saying signed Alexia Tarabotti

I created this during many clusters of 10 minutes joined together, it's going to be a love banner for whomever I think needs it, you do know January is only 10 weeks away, not to mention what might come between? Just saying signed Santa Claus.
 Still in progress it is  "rough" appliqued cotton scraps on a taffeta ground. I pretty much love taffeta, so full of delightful sounds as you embroider on it. Like a symphony, all rustley and the thread sings through it, the needle is the percussion.

#5 & 6 Heartful Handful Movement

Day 5

I'm really glad today for such great students who are keenly interested in the interaction of colour.

I'm thrilled for all the things we can do with a simple thing called wool.

I'm so happy when young women come here after school and eat up my ginger brownies.

I was inspired by this woman Irene Van der Wolf and her forward thinking about wool and felting and forms with holes in them, she is an innovator and an outside thinker!

Go here to see all of amazing videos!

I was also inspired by this sight:

I made this from some scraps laying around:

Day 6

I was grateful today for seeing old friends come by one by one as I was at the grocery store and chat with them for a few minutes today and for the three compliments I got about my 30s cloche hat downtown!!!!

I was glad, glad, glad to have a car to drive on my errands because the weather is all over the place.

I was grateful for Man doing the dishes up so I could write to you.

I was inspired today by this beautiful fabric I got from Marcy Tilton

And I also loved the sight of my wool, my squirrel and my birdhouse

Today I spent 10 minutes dyeing the above wool.

HeARTful Handful Movement #4

I'm grateful for the way Man walks me each night around 8 blocks or so, others are out with their pets too between 9 and 10.

I'm grateful for good students who are coming to learn to colour the Spirit Owl in their own way today enhanced by the fact I sold it a few weeks ago and no reference will be available. I'm grateful for that sale too.

My goodness I'm dead grateful for colour and my enjoyment of it.



 I'm inspired by this photo from here

And this artwork by Tiffany Calder Kingston called  Hare

I was able to make exactly nothing but wool, is this enough? Probably, it looks like a beautiful view of colourful algae in  sunlit water.