Rugs from Peninsula Rugmakers Guild–February 2011

Pillowtop hooked by Wendy Brannan.  She started this piece at Western Teacher’s Workshop last year.  I believe it is a McGown pattern called “Marie”.


Rug braided by Jeanine Speckman. 


This purse is was hooked by a visitor to our guild from another state.  It looks like Deanne Fitzpatrick was her inspiration. *




Lena Krinard brought wool she dyed recently with natural dyes—mostly eucalyptus leaves.  It was beautiful!




As usual—lots of inspiration from all of the projects in process.


*My Thursday night hooking group had a discussion regarding the Deanne Fitzpatrick pattern used on the purse brought to guild.  The woman who made it indicated she got the pattern from a photo in a magazine.  I think many times people think it is OK to get a pattern this way if it is for your own use.  Myself, I never really thought much of it myself when I started hooking.  I have, in fact, have made use of an unauthorized copy of a pattern myself a couple of times.   As Maya Angelou says, "When you know better, do better".  The reason why I am even mentioning this now is because we should all learn the rules so we can all do better.

The rule to follow is whether your use is depriving the designer of a sale.  I myself have used a leaflet pattern that someone else purchased.  The original purchaser used a different motif in the pattern, so we decided that in that instance it was probably OK for us to share the pattern.  I, however, passed the pattern on to someone else.  Ethically, we should have not done that.  It should have stopped with me.  I made another rug with a hit-and-miss pattern that was traced on pellon.  I thought it was some random drawing someone did, but later I recognized that it was actually the McGown cat's paw pattern.  So... bottom line, now that I know better I plan to do better.  I hope you will too.

The Time to Start Rapture Has Arrived

2008-06-04 - Rapture has arrived, originally uploaded by Sharlene W.

I ordered Rapture (a McGown-Flynn pattern) over two years ago because I saw Lena Krinard in my hooking guild working on it and I fell in love. The pattern is 42x72 and is rather intimidating. I think I am finally feeling competent enough to tackle this.


I plan to do all of the dying myself. I did order some background through the guild from Dorr (a very dark brown called Elizabeth's Black). I decided to break it down by element to make it less overwhelming. In actuality there are only a few different elements


Roses -
Star Gazer Lilies -
Foxgloves
Hydrangeas
Morning Glories
Long pointed lily leaf
Morning Glory leaf
Hydrangea leaf
Rose leaf
Foxglove leaf


I did a Google Image search for each of the flowers and found virtually thousands of images to choose from. I selected a few of each variety that were colors I liked and that showed the detail of the different elements of the flower. This will be my jumping off point.


My goal is to fairly realistically depict the various flowers in an array of colors that are harmonious. I am going to take the same approach to dying that I did with my "November" rug, and that is to take one element at a time, dye the wool, hook an element, and then move to the next element, layering it in.  Wish me luck--I'm scared...


Here are some photos of Lena's Rapture Rug.  She started her rug in a class with Helen Connolly.  I think some of the formulas she used to dye her wool were from Helen, but others were things she has collected and dyed along the way.  You can see why I was inspired!

Hydrangeas

Morning Glories

Foxgloves and Rose Leaves

Foxgloves and Lilies

Love the Lily Leaves!

Wool for Lily Leaves

Wool for Lily

I'm In Print!

It is official, the magazine is published and I finally have a copy in my hands. My Art Deco Peacock rug is featured in this year's Celebration of Hand-Hooked Rugs, 20th Anniversary Edition published by Rug Hooking Magazine. I am humbled and honored to have my rug featured among the other beautiful and unique works of art in this publication.

Thanks to my son-in-law, Jason Parmentier, who took the photographs. They did my rug justice and I feel the quality of the photograph is such an important part of getting your rug considered. It is a rather large rug and he did an excellent job of squaring it up and presenting it true to life.


I am also grateful to my good friend and rug-hooker Lena Krinard. I have followed in her footsteps, and have learned so much from her. She and I both looked at the same book of linoleum rug ideas at different times. She saw a potential hooked rug and I saw a beautiful linoleum rug. She was gracious enough to allow me to work on the same pattern as she was--yet again. You have such good taste Lena! Of my five "completed" rugs, four of them are rugs I have in common with Lena. I do have to say, however, two of them I started first!

Lena's Cat's Paw

I met up with my dear friend and rug hooking mentor, Lena Krinard at the monthly Craft Day at Mt. Olive Church in Milpitas yesterday.  She was excited to show off her nearly completed Cat's Paw (an adaptation of a Gene Shepherd design).  She is working her way through tacking down the rug binding and will soon have it on it's way to a new home with one of her family members.  Lena gives most of her rugs away to her children, sending them off the instant they are done.


Absolutely stunning rug Lena!  

Click on the photo below to see larger photo.