Blog Archives

The Dog Shop's proud new owners!

1/26/2017

Today I must brag as only a proud mother/mother-in-law can do. My son Shane and his lovely wife Ashley have purchased, and are now the new owners of THE DOG SHOP in Mahone Bay. (Don’t worry gals, Shane is still working for me, dyeing up your wool and making your hooking dreams come true!)

Ashley will be running THE DOG SHOP, has actually been managing it for some time and it is a dream come true for her to officially wear the hat of boss. Ashley truly, deeply and without falter, loves dogs.   Her dedication is infinite. To her, working with our four legged friends and grooming isn’t a job at all, it’s a passion that you can physically see radiate from her smile as she speaks of her dreams and plans for the business.

She’s clever and inventive and has wonderful taste. I tell Shane he married his mother but he’ll hear none of it, but I think we share a lot in common. We certainly love to create and we both love our fur babies with equal ferocity. Like me; her heart has plenty more room to add to their little fur family so I know there will be more grand pups to love.

Ashley has a true entrepreneurial spirit; her work time doesn’t end as she switches off the lights and turns the key each evening. She works long hours into the night sewing product for the shop and is forever creating new ideas and making them come to fruition.   And her passion for dogs doesn't end with grooming. She is also an advocate for healthier choices of food for our pets, stocking all the right ingredients for those conscientious about home and natural feeding. She also is a steadfast supporter of Misfit Manner Dog Rescue, where she found her beloved Sadie.

Over the holidays they worked their fingers to the bone scraping, painting and sanding floors for a fresh coat to begin their journey. The place sparkles and smells of hopes and dreams that will all come true, they both know the value of hard work and dedication so how can they fail? The Dog Shop spa area is so luxurious it makes humans jealous, at least I think so. A bit of pampering would be fantastic, get a relaxing massage and shampoo, some head scratching and my nails trimmed!    I'd go for it!

We love Ashley. She has enhanced Shane’s life and together they will build a bright and wonderful future.   I tear up when I think of them, this young couple filled with so much promise, charting their course through life, open to all it has to offer. Their future’s so bright they need to wear shades….. Best of luck kids in all that you do!

Check out their FB page and give them a like!
https://www.facebook.com/The-Dog-Shop-127073950684071/?fref=ts

Ashley's and Shane's babies, Sadie (left) and Taylor (right) testing out the new sitting area where you can wait while your own fur kid gets the spa treatment. Great job on those floors Shane!

It's all about the love.....

Happiness is......this picture!

19 Comments

Hit & Miss Minis

1/25/2017

6 Comments

Hit & Miss Whale

Hit & Miss Butterfly

y back is back, so too am I.    Funny how certain postures and positions can do you in. Remarkably I was able to sit and hook, with support pillows jammed into the curve of my back to keep it rigid and straight and at the proper angle, but getting in and out of the chair was a bit of a challenge. Nothing makes a person feel older than not being able to eject yourself from a chair with a smooth and fluid motion. Getting out was painful, bent and clutching the chair arms, moving at a snail’s pace as not to jar the tender nerve waiting to dance upon the bone and send me into a spasm. I looked and felt twenty years my senior. Of course there are sighs and noises that escaped my lips, dins I’ve only heard when working in a nursing home, or when our friend Peter comes over for dinner. Poor guy, I think a couple of knee replacements are in his future. Oh, the sights and sounds of the less nimble, clackity clack of bone on bone, the song of our future.

But I must look on the bright side on this post icey, storm day of yesterday. All is calm and the sky is as clear as was my prepubescent face, the wind has died, no longer stripping shingles from my roof to scatter about the yard. Today, my cup is half full. Although at times my back still creaks in protest, I’m on the green side of the grass, the roof hasn't leaked despite numerous attempts by mother nature's fury, and I have two more hooked pieces to feel proud about. (We have a roofer coming first thing in the Spring....hopefully it can hold on, to its shingles that is...)

I started a series called Hit & Miss Minis of 12" x 12" rugs. The first was the whale done in blues and turquoises, then the Butterfly in golden oranges and now I’m working on the Canadian flag, well in time for this year’s 150 birthday celebration. If interested, the patterns are for sale. We have them in 12' x 12" but if anyone is interested in a 16" x 16" size let us know. The actual pattern for the whale has an eye to be hooked but I thought I would look for an oval button to sew on.

I’m making these rugs into pillows for a display in the shop. I have to admit that hit and miss is striking, it catches the eye immediately when walking through the door and I do love to have more eye candy for the studio. I'm sure these will be popular kits, beginners love to start with hit and miss projects, practicing those straight lines to perfect the technique before moving on to wavy lines and circles.

The lineal structure of vertical and horizontal lines is very pleasing to view but I have to admit, there’s not much hit and miss to hit and miss anymore. Before it was whatever was on hand, using up cut strips, worms leftover from previous projects, but now with unlimited dyed wool to choose from, it is colour planned and calculated. I choose to do mine with a monochromatic feel, all colours blending, but perhaps I’ll mix it up on the next one.

Below is the work in progress for the Hit & Miss Canadian Flag I will finish tonight. I stayed with the reds and white to represent our actual flag colours. I hooked the background in a #3 cut and pixelated the loops instead of following the holes in regular hooking. I find white doesn't fill in as well and I didn't want to see where the tails started and ended nor did I want to pack it tightly to keep the shadows of the loops from showing.   I might not have used white if I'd thought it through. Perhaps a slightly off white, with a wash of the lightest colour would have been less stark against the deep reds, I even toy with changing it but then think....who am I to change the actual colours of our flag.    For monitors that make this look more pink, I assure you it is tones of red, some are even brownish with an orange undertone.   Come by the shop to see!

Hit & Miss Canadian Flag

6 Comments

Pain Purgatory...

1/17/2017

9 Comments

I zigged when I should have zagged and flared my sciatica. Although in the past I’ve been down sometimes more than I’ve been up, once I realized my limitations and was careful I haven’t had an episode for a couple of years knock on wood! So I was a bit deluded this last snowstorm and feeling pretty cocky with the shovel. I really need to keep reminding myself I am not a spring chicken, nor am I a man with the upper body strength to be lifting that kind of load. Three shovels full in and I felt the pull, like a rubber band being stretched to its limit taking me to pain purgatory between 6 and 7.

After all that talk of cleaning on the boat, whining about shoveling snow might sound strange, but there’s something about the angle to which my body reaches when holding that bloody tool that does me in.   My son offers to help and I should really take him up on his offer, but I’m one of those mothers that don’t like to interfere, he’s married now and busy with his new life, I don’t want to be one of those woman that can’t let go but I guess I need to find a happy medium and call on help from time to time. Considering the consequences, I really should do a shout out because being bed ridden or sofa bound cramps my style. It’s been a week now and I still find it difficult to get in and out of chairs, stand for long periods and getting in and out of and driving the car is the worst.

I’ve always been fiercely independent, being on my own since I was a teen. My first hubby was a scallop fisherman, away two weeks and home three days and the current one (hopefully the last), is a geologist that works out of province.   Through necessity, I’ve learned to take care of myself; I can muddle thought must things dealing with everyday living.   It’s going to be rough when I’m old and not in charge of my life. Living with limitations and might be a fate worse than death. For me, independence is one of the biggest perks of my life.

At the worst of my flare-up, I shuffled around the house, bent over and uncomfortable, grabbing on to counters and furniture to help pull me along.   Putting on my shoes and boots was an act of concern, thank goodness I no longer have footwear with laces.

I’m not exactly a convalescing beauty. I strayed from the shower for a bit worried I might slip and fall, and if I dropped the soap, well I wouldn’t be bending over. I feel like one of those Walmartians posted on the internet, with my pajama bottoms jacked up under my armpits to keep the waist elastic off my lower back. Although my look is out of necessity, many call it fashion. I’m reminded of a picture burned on my brain of an older gal, on the heavy side, wearing only pajama bottoms, pulled up over her sagging breasts, perhaps harkening back to the day of strapless dresses I guess. She was happily pushing her cart around Walmart without a care in the world. Would I ever go out in public looking like this, hell no, I can’t imagine it. I guess pride is dished out in uneven doses because I got way too much while others were cheated. On the flip side, perhaps I admire her for not given a crap what others think. I could have used a little less of that particular trait.

The biggest concern was food, or lack of it. Mother Hubbard’s cupboard was practically bare. I was down to crackers and cheese the last two days before I made it to the grocery store for provisions. The town I live in is so small you have to go outside its boundaries to change your mind; nothing delivers not even the pizza joint, but then again I wouldn’t have wanted anyone from the outside world seeing me at my worst.

So I lived with my Urkel look for a few days before going back to work. I still have a twinge or two to mind when sitting, and I’m very careful when I bend. Just another hurtle to jump....well crawl over gently.....

9 Comments

Recreating a piece of the past......

1/13/2017

7 Comments

By Guest Blogger Edwin Corah

The first time I saw the original rug was in Sept. 2015 when I was visiting my wife's aunt in Nova Scotia. I was showing her and her son some of the rugs I had hooked. My wife's cousin said he had some rugs that his mom's mother had hooked years ago. I said I would like to see them so the next visit we looked at three old rugs. They were in very poor condition, as they had gotten wet and rotted, disintegrating and what was left was pretty much a black mess. I took pictures of the rugs and decided I would hook one of them. One end of the hit and miss geometric was intact enough to see the original colours and I wanted to recreate it with as close of a colour match as possible.

I had tried to find the pieces of wool to do this but had trouble so I waited till I went back to Nova Scotia which was September 2016 and brought some of the rugs and pictures to Encompassing Designs in Mahone Bay to speak to Shane on matching these colours and he was up for the challenge. He did a wonderful job. I created the pattern and started hooking the rug in October and finished in December 2016. Edges still need to be finished.

The original rug was one of my wife's grandmothers from Princeport Nova Scotia. Her daughter remembers her mother drawing the design on jute backing and hooking the rug with dyed wool stripes that were made mostly from strips of used wool clothing. Stanfield's "long johns" were frequently used and cut into strips as well. She recalls the rug design was her mom's creation and was made during the Great Depression in the 1930's.

7 Comments

Gossip

1/11/2017

3 Comments

I highlighted Harem last week and feel Gossip deserves its day in the sun. There is a show at New Ross Farm dedicated to farm life and Harem and Gossip are on display.

Gossip - 18” x 35 ½   Sometimes when settling down with paper and pencil to create a new design, I can begin with one idea and end up with a totally different outcome.   Initially I had planned to draw a couple of hen chair pads but the first bird’s beak looked like it was talking and the idea was born to have a brood all clucking away, gossiping in the henhouse. This design was one of those cases where the name of it adds to the content so I positioned the word "Gossip" along with other hen speak around the outer border. At first glance anyone would know the story this rug tells because the hens really do look like they are tossing a bit of gossip about. They look excited and jubulent as they walk around the barnyard. Perhaps they're squawking about an unwanted rooster in the hen house. Or perhaps one scarlet Red Hen has been caught crossing the field to a neighbouring farm for bit of cock-a-doodle-do. Perhaps the rooster is showing a little too much attention to a new chick, getting a few feathers riled from his regular brood.

Coincidentally, I had a discussion about gossip the other day with Shane. He’s still young, and appalled that people that like or love you can talk behind your back. He's been raised in a home where gossip is second place to conversations about our own lives and the world beyond mostly due to my no nonsense second husband. Not that we are perfect, we gossip too, to a lessor degree, but I always found our lives busy enough without having the time to bother about anyone elses. And I've been grist for the gossip mill, having a previous, volitile marriage that provided more than its share of dirty laundry fodder that was bantered about like a ball on a ping pong table from one end of town to another. Being on the wrong side I learned how much it can hurt. Not that I don't share the occasional tidbit with friends to make conversation interesting, after all talking about myself can only hold an audience captive for so long....

Anyway, Shane has been disillusioned when he found out someone he liked and respected said something about him and it hurt. He thinks friends and family should be loyal. The poor, deluded boy..... Me, the wise old hen, knows the scoop. I’ve been on this planet long enough to know that everyone does it. Idle gossip is everywhere, mostly innocent stuff but sometimes it’s hurtful and condemning. But still, it’s only talk, only words, conversations, not like sticks and stones that can break blood vessels and bones. Gossip can only hurt if you let it.

Realistically, after discussing the weather and what we've had for breakfast and what extraordinary thing our kids did that day, what’s left? World news is depressing, so it boils down to local tattle to entertain. There isn’t a person alive that doesn’t share the odd juicy tidbit, who’s doing what to whom. As long as others are screwing up, it makes us look better right?   Until of course it’s our turn on the rack and then it’s another matter.

My interpretation of gossip is “If you won’t say it to a person’s face and don’t want them to know you’ve said it, it’s gossip”. Sometimes it comes down to opinions, we all have them like that common sphincter that's part of our anatomy. Mostly it's mild stuff, but some take gossip to higher levels, making an occupation of it, living viacariously though others, excelling until they should be awarded a PHD for burying their nose where it shouldn't be sniffing. I’ve been around a long time and I can’t name one person, myself included, who hasn’t said something behind someone’s back at one time or another. Ah come on folks, own up to it. “I heard Ben and Veronia broke up.” No matter how sympathetic you are, it’s gossip especially when we begin to surmise why it happend. Gossip in a dictionary is defined as typically involving details that are not confirmed as being true, no matter how we think we might know best, until you've walked in another person's shoes it's only conjecture, but the tongues continue to wag filing in the gaps to embellish the tale.

I'm not preaching or apologzing, I'm tarring myself with the same busybody brush but I take comfort in knowing that the majority of us aren’t mean, just maybe a bit bored and need a little titilation. It’s conversation. We can’t take it personally, and besides, what we don’t know won’t hurt us most of the time. I know that same person that said something hurtful about Shane would jump up to defend him with their life, so we need to get over it, only sweat the stuff that’s life threatening or immoral.

My dear mother’s philosophy was best, she would say, “When they talk about me they leave someone else alone”. How wise she was.   And then there’s, “People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones” and “He who is without sin can cast the first stone”.....well, if we all took a good look at ourselves, there would never be any broken glass.....

Gossip - Designed by Christine Little
Hooked by Jen McAdams

3 Comments

Harem

1/5/2017

8 Comments

Harem has been a staple pattern in the shop for 14 years. It might be a bit of an oldy, but it's still a goodie, as popular today as when it was first introduced. A timeless design is one that appeals to the masses, isn't dated or trendy. Being rug hookers who drool over and covet wool, a sheep design is like crack to an addict, a;ways sought after and ageless.

The lambs tongue border is the perfect framing for a family of sheep and the army green background overdyed on several textures and solids feels like grazing grass. I decided to leave the faces blank for a bigger statement, at first trying to get in the details of eyes and mouth in the small space but they came off looking angry and had to go.

Each sheep is a different plaid or herringbone, mixing up the those colours for the heads, ears and legs. I hooked this version about a decade ago, and it has gathered a lot of attention hanging in the shop. I’ve been asked to sell it many times but I don’t part easy with my pieces, and they serve the shop better by inspiring clients to buy the pattern or order a kit. Someday the rug will be on the floor in my home, that’s the plan anyway and in the meantime it hangs for my enjoyment when I walk into the pattern room. This family portrait of sheep always evokes the memory of my wonderful father-in-law, one of the loviest men I have ever met.

What’s not to love about sheep? They are of course, responsible for our addiction to wool and for that we are truly thankful! I’ve seen Harem hooked in many different colours and sometimes the rug hooker makes fun little changes like puts socks on all the sheep or perhaps adds a sky with grass and flowers. I love hearing about the little changes rug hookers have made to personalize the design, making the sheep their family, one had two of them hooked like twins, some wore hats. The possibilities are endless.

This rug design was inspired from a cute “Little” story told by my father-in-law, James (Jim) Little. He and my mother-in-law were part of a group of friends made up of six couples, airline pilots and their wives who socialized together. After they all retired and the years went by, one by one the men all passed away until only Jim remained. When the group went out for dinner, he merrily referred to the six women as his harem, thence the ram and six sheep. Jim is now gone as well, he died a couple of years ago and the only one still standing from the group is my mother-in-law, Wynn, who is now 98 and blazing a trail to 100.

Harem 18 ½” x 36” http://www.encompassingdesigns.com/signature-designs.html