Monday, 28 October 2019

2nd Annual Artisan Market


Today at our Monday meeting we held our 2nd annual Artisan Market. This is where our group can display their talents in non-rug hooking areas, and even sell some of their wares.   It was a successful day all round, thanks to the organizing efforts of Christine!

Rosemary brought her jewellery  
Francine brought blanket material, and a quilt for raffle.  
Debbie brought rug hooking and braiding materials
Ann brought bags she made
Lynda had watercolour cards and ornaments
Karen Kaiser came to us, fresh from Ancaster
Sandra had lovely quilts
Bev and her sister Barb brought soaps and things from Thistles and Sticks
Judy came with her hand woven tea towels. 
And there was a freebie table
There was a display of fall-themed rugs, along with some completed and in progress projects.  Here’s just a small sample of what was there.

Mary Lou’s doodle from the Doodle Art workshop with Wendie Scott Davis 

Brenda’s portrait from Wendie Scott Davis’ class at Trent in June


Carol’s completed rug

Martina’s Scottish scΓ¨ne in progress


Sunday, 20 October 2019

A Gi-normous Thank You!

Well....the dust has settled after our gala event “The Heat Is ON” Hook-In & Regional Workshops on Sept 30 and we’ve taken some time to review the day, for help in planning similar events.  

The most notable thing was that our attendance almost doubled over previous years!  This was due to many factors including lots of promotion via social media, and community events both inside and outside the rug hooking world.  A big thank you to the folks who liked, shared, clicked and retweeted, as well as those who demonstrated rug hooking within the community.  
πŸ˜πŸ‘πŸ»πŸ‘πŸ»❤️

We held workshops for the first time and we want to thank all of the teachers who brought these classes to life:
  • Tina Cole: Rookie Hooking,
  • Loretta Moore: A Journey into the World of Primitives/Wide Cut, 
  • Wendie Scott Davis: Tangle Art, and 
  • Susan Clarke: The Heat is ON.
We had a great group of vendors to tempt the attendees with their wares.  A big thanks goes to them for all their work!  They included: 
As with most hook-ins, we had a fantastic display of rugs, and prizes awarded, as well as great door prizes and yummy treats.  There was a great group of volunteers within our group who helped at every stage of the project.  They made the day the success that it was.  A huge thank you to all!

...but most of all, thank you to the attendees! We hope you enjoyed the day and will come back again....in 2021!

♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️


Monday, 14 October 2019

A New Project from Brenda


Look at this lovely image. Our very own Brenda A says it’s “almost finished”. It’s based on the work of Wayne Forte, a talented artist based in California. Here’s a link to his website. 

Brenda completed this work with the artist’s permission.  This is a good time for a reminder of the need to obtain permission before using someone else’s work.  Whenever you see something that you think would look good hooked, consider who owns the copyright.

If it is a work by a living artist, you need to contact him/her, explain what you want to do and ask permission. Most will say yes right away.  A couple of other recent examples where permission was sought include Dianne’s Mummer and the Bear picture.

Here’s a great set of questions to ask yourself when starting a project. It comes to us from the Old Forge Rug Hooking groupe in Ottawa.  It’s called “Copyright for Dummies”.

If you want more details, here’s a link to a blog post we did way back when. There’s a great chart you can follow as a guide to how to proceed when copying an image.

If you’re not sure how to do any of this or whether permission is indeed required, ask someone within your rug hooking group. There’s someone sure to know.

There are also several websites that do offer copyright free works, but beware of Pinterest, Instagram, facebook, etc, as outlined in the Ottawa group’s note above. Here’s a link to a great set of photos that are indeed free to use. 


Friday, 4 October 2019

The Heat Is ON Hook-In & Regional Workshops

A snippet from Francine Birket’s award winning (and huge!) rug
wow!  Wasn’t that a great day?

The Northumberland Rug Hookers typically host a hook-in every 2 years and invite folks from the surrounding area for a day of cameraderie and hooking, and usually there are a few vendors. 
Lois Smith, winner of the Fine Cut category

This year, tho, we opted for a different approach, and included several workshops....just to see if it is possible. The answer is.....yes, it is, but there’s a LOT of work involved!  We’ve had a team of folks working on this project for almost a year, and we’re thrilled with the results. 


Iris Vermeulen, winner of the wide cut category
Our theme for the day was The Heat Is ON, focussing on climate change. There were 2 speakers to address the topic:
- Jennifer Wiber on Temperature Tapestries, visualizing climate data through rug hooking
- Alice Olsen Williams, presenting her fabulous quilts with indigenous motifs

(and just to be different, we’ve posted short videos instead of lots of photos....)



There was a display of rugs, and attendees voted on their favourites:
- fine cut: winner Lois Smith
- wide cut: winner Iris Vermeulen
- theme - The Heat Is On: winner Francine Birket



For those who want to study the rugs at their leisure, here’s a link to a photo album containing shots of most of them.

There were many vendors (click on the links below to go to their web sites, where applicable):

There were 4 workshops taking place, and there was lots of learning going on!:
- Rookie Hooking with Tina Cole
- Tangle Art with Wendie Scott Davis
- A Journey into the World of Primitive/Wide Cut with Loretta Moore
- The Heat Is On (pictorial) with Susan Clarke



...but most of all, there were lots of rug hookers!  One of our best attended hook-in’s ever.  Thank you all for making it such a success!  A huge thank you to the tremendous effort from all of our volunteers - they’re the reason this went so well!