THE HEAT IS ON

Yes, indeed - the wheels are in motion for a wonderful event to take place in September 2019.  You won't want to miss this one, so Save the Date!  Details of the workshops (1/2 and full day) will be published in March, and registration will be open until June 28.

Happy New Year!

Assorted Items for December

Check out new member Nancy's latest project - didn't she do a great job?

Below are 3 things that may be of interest to you!  They've come from various blogs and Facebook pages we follow.


Loopy Supply.  There's a very interesting shop in Moncton, NB, with some lovely wares.  They have a great website (and sell stuff online, too!).  Here are two interesting things i found while dipsydoodling through their site:

• Lessons Learned - some great tips for new and experienced hookers alike!
• I always struggle with knowing how much fabric i need for a project - either ending up with too much or too little.  Check out this handy dandy wool calculator!  

Tulle sculptor.  There's a gentleman in New York who does some amazing sculpture using tulle (think tutus and crinolines).




Residue of creativity  This is an interesting article about artists who feature the residue arising from their creations.  Wouldn't it be neat to do something with all the bits we snip off from our rugs? Maybe a big glass jar filled with all our colourful "residue", or some crazy felted dryer balls?


Patterns made with sound.  An intriguing way of generating patterns.

A Completed Wreath

Back in November, we mentioned that there are folks out there making trees and wreaths from fringed fabric....and our very own Christine has completed one!

She did a fantastic job, and i know it took her quite a bit of time (and fabric) to do it, but doesn't it look lovely?

Here's a video explaining how to do the branches.  They can then be used in either trees or wreaths!


Christine used her own fabric and wire and glue, but Searsport is selling kits in various sizes.  Click here to see what they are doing.

Hopefully I can get a few more photos when i see the completed wreath "in the flesh".


ETA - more photos from the wreath, in person!  It's very lush - lots of texture and shades of green.

Holiday Potluck

It was time for yet another holiday potluck, and there was certainly lots of yummy food and a really good crowd to share it with!  

There were several rugs on display:

Jillian showed us her lovely work in silk.  It will be featured in a show at the Art Gallery of Northumberland in February.  Stay tuned for more details on it!

Lots of folks visited with Karen Kaiser and came away with some lovely purchases.  Here's Christine's upcoming project waiting for some time with Karen:

The stars of the day, tho, were the projects from the A Walk In The Woods Class with Carol Shewan.  We asked all of the participants to bring in their mats, whether completed or not, so we could compare them.....and what a show it was!  Each of them were very different, but clearly are Tom Thompson-based works.

We took a photo of the group with their projects, and it was a lovely shot:

But my favourite is this one - check out Massimo photo-bombing us!

Here's a collage of the completed works:

Interesting Things

Ann’s completed house!  Well done!

Today’s selection of things of interest include:

- this is a video about the Master quilters of Gees Bend in Alabama. Their quilts are lovely, made from recycled fabrics, and their story is quite interesting, too.



Below is a link to pictures of several of their quilts that were shown in the Museum of Fine Arts.
http://www.wbur.org/artery/2018/11/12/museum-of-fine-arts-mfa-gees-bend-quilts
And here’s an interview with the film maker:
http://moveablefest.com/maris-curran-while-i-yet-live/
One of the ladies is heard to say “When I’m doing my quilt, my mind is totally into it, and I don’t have to be perfect.”  Sound familiar?

- there’s a movement out in the knitting world that is tracking the weather in a scarf! Each row is knitted in a colour that represents the temperature for that day. It results in about 48 inches of knitting and makes a special gift for an individual, or for a family....tracking the weather on significant years in their lives.  On the right is an example of scarves knitted by folks from a college in Michigan.
I’m thinking this could be an interesting endeavour to consider for rug hooking, tho a row for every day of the year in a rug may be a bit much. I’m trying out a sample with weekly temperatures and I’ll let you know how it goes. In the meantime, check out this link for more on the idea.

- I think I’ve posted something similar before, but we probably need to do more of these....Exercises for the hands.

Betty's almost completed frog - in pantyhose!

Yarns 'n Yakking at Castleton

Lynda, our friend Deb, and I attended Yarns 'n Yakking at the Oriental Hotel in Castleton today.  It was put on by the folks from the Mill at Piper Creek/Yarns from the Mill, and was their first gathering of folks for a chance to hang out with folks interested in fibery things.  We figured rug hooking would fit in ok (and Deb brought knitting).

The event was housed in the former Oriental Hotel which was a fascinating building.  It still has some of the original features!  See below for a few photos i took.

As for the fibery stuff, there were about a dozen of us, engaged in various yarn-ish activities.  The folks who represent Yarns from the Mill were very engaged in greeting us, feeding us and wanted to learn more about our fibre pursuits.   They will host this event at least twice more:  on the 3rd monday of the month in December and January.

Here are some photos that they posted to their Facebook page:




Here are the hotel photos:

Assorted Items

If you're available this coming Monday, there's a fibre event happening in Castleton at The Mill at Piper Creek.  If you recall, Dianne and Judy attended a fibre festival there earlier in the year and thoroughly enjoyed themselves.  It looks like the same folks are now organizing a "yarns and yakking" session for the next few months, on the 3rd Monday of the month.  The first event is November 19.  Rug Hooking is definitely a fibre craft, and would fit in just fine with all the other crafty things that will be going on there.

Click here to learn more.  Monday from 10 to 12.

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If you applied to attend Trent Rug Hooking School this coming June, and you HAVEN'T heard back from the organizers, it looks like you're IN!

Here's the Facebook post from Cindy Fridenberg.

(now to remember what it is i applied for!)

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There was a book on colour theory published at the turn of the century, and it's being re-printed in full colour.  The book itself looks interesting, but the article about the author is interesting, too!  This info comes to us via the OHCG Facebook page.   https://hyperallergic.com/467406/revisiting-emily-vanderpoels-color-theory-book-117-years-after-its-first-release/

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This looks like an intriguing site.  "Founded in 2013, the Canadian Online Art Book Project is a growing digital library of books–all original works commissioned by the Art Canada Institute–by the country’s leading art experts on artists who have made a critical contribution to the evolution of the nation’s art history. Each year the ACI releases six new titles in this program."

I checked out the book on Tom Thomson, and it's a wonderful resource.....there may be yet another Thomson rug in me!  Not all of the artworks listed are in the public domain, but it all makes for interesting reading.

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This just in!  The Northumberland Art Gallery Shop in Port Hope has a website, with lovely things on display.  Featured among them are works by our own very talented folks:  Betty Foster, Greg Gall, Lynda Johnston and Judy Parnell!  Click here to see!

Wreaths and more

Here is a collection of various things I’ve recently found in my travels, and thought you may like them! Pictured above is the latest completed item by Lynda Johnston - lovely.  It’s a pattern available from Carol Shewan.

Trees & wreaths:  Today at rug hooking we were fascinated with wreaths/trees made with fringed wool. They look fairly easy to do, tho there’s a lot of work involved. Here are two videos that may be of interest:

This one was posted on Facebook and the video in the comments shows how to make branches for a wreath. Click here for the wreath video.

Here’s a video showing a similar process, and working with a kit that is available from this site
Click here for the tree video.

Edited to add:  this just in from Lynda, here’s another place that’s offering tree kits and more online.
https://searsportrughooking.com/collections/wooly-feather-trees

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Heres a podcast from the tighr event in Yorkshire last month.


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Here’s another great video showing how fabric is printed commercially.  https://twitter.com/hole_and_corner/status/1056999223747641345?s=21

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This is a video from Deanne Fitzpatrick on symbolism in rugs. https://mailchi.mp/hookingrugs/free-videos-in-our-new-and-improved-newsletter-2473053

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This next post has nothing directly to do with rug hooking. It’s an article about caregiving, etc. A topic we're all familiar with....and the photo featured with the article is a hooked piece by Laura Kenny, called “holding on”. https://understoreymagazine.ca/article/you-can-do-better-than-that/

KITCHNER HOOK-IN

We had a great time at the Kitchner Hook-in Dianne thanks for driving us. You can see Brenda's gorgous leaves on the left and the brich bark just waiting to hook the beaver on her NEXT piece.  She already completed her Group of Seven and showed it at the "show & tell" and it was received with great applause and oogled by others who came to our table for a closer look.

There were alot of vendors of wool and frames, a flea market type table of wool and a silent auction for 2 frames and of course some 50/50 tickets and we didn't win so no DINNER for us!
They also had a guy who sharpened scissors and wheels, the latter is something new for me but darn, didn't bring my wheels.  Brenda did and got them sharpened so that will only add to her speed in completing her projects now, go Brenda!

More photos posted below

                                                                shoppers

                                               Carole the button lady, I bought some!!!!

                                                                  flea market buys

                                    Summer Hill, books written by her daughter and patterns by Rosemary?

                                      Mat titled "it's all in the accessories"   Summer Hill I believe

                                                                  yummy wool

                                       Dying with leave, Dawn Liu-Smyth: very cool process

                                                       Shelley? hope I have the name right, her rug below

                            Beauatiful, original hoping to be completed for the annual, birds of a feather

                                             Tracey , this is the moon 1969

                                     She has lots of story rugs of her mom and family that covers 90 years
                                                      a real legacy and a fairly new hooker.
                                      She said you can do anything and has learned from each mat.

Multi-Craftual

Today's Monday meeting was a celebration of all things "multi-craftual".  Many of the folks in our group do more than one crafty thing, and we gathered together to admire the work of these talented folk, and even to buy some of their wares.  This brain-child of our very own Christine featured:

- jewellery
- rug hooking (natch!)
- felting
- soap making
- wood products
- sewn bags
- quilting
- knitting
- appliqué
- spinning

One of Dora's quilts in progress

Pam brought along her Dollar Box of wool treasures

Anne's lovely bags

One of Martina's many great knitted projects

Lynda's gorgeous hooked stocking

Lynda's felted and hooked ornaments

Bev brought great soaps, jewellery and wood products

Rosemary's fantastic jewellery

Donna's quilted, felted and appliqué treasures

Ownership of this much-loved sweater transferred to Judy!

As well, there were several completed and in-progress rug hooking projects to ogle:

Several folks brought their Tom Thomson rugs to work on, and Brenda even managed to finish hers!