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Tip for cutting wool in the Winter....

2/19/2020

12 Comments

 
It was incredibly dry today and I was just cutting some kits and when I reached for the hand cream, I thought.... gee I should post this trick. 
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When you are cutting wool with your machine, sometimes the strips stick to the blade and roll under the wheel and back up the inside.   Sometimes you try to dig them out and maybe reverse the handle to back up and retrieve it, but then you end up butchering the strips.  It keeps happening over and over and you get a bit flustered.  All you want to do is cut fast and get hooking! 

Sometimes the strips are sticking and you try blowing hot air on it and flick it off the wheel but it just keeps wanting to wrap around the blade.  Cutting takes forever!  Dry winter days are the culprit and even worse, if you've just pulled your wool out of the dryer with a static charge running though it, cutting is almost impossible.  Frustrating?  Tell us about it!  At the studio we cut more wool than most and let me tell you, static cling is aggravating!   And then after the wool is cut it keeps sticking to your hands as you try to lay it out straight on the table to tie into a bundle.  Yup...we've all been there and will be again, time after time.  Oh joy!  If only someone could invent a way to stop this madness!!  

The answer is so simple you'll kick yourself for not thinking of.  Before you start to cut, get out a bottle of hand cream and add the teeniest bit on the wrist of the hand that cranks the handle. Don’t get it on that hand as it will slip and slide as you turn the handle and you don’t want a buildup of hand cream there.   Now with your fingers of the hand that touches the wool as it feeds through the blade, rub them well into the dob of cream...the palm doesn't matter as it doesn’t touch the wool.  I guarantee, the wool will feed straight through without any static charge build-up!  

Your hand is the culprit.  It is probably dry and as the wool passes under your fingers it causes friction and creates a static charge, like walking along a carpet and shuffling your feet. When the charged wool touches the blade, it wants to stick to the metal. No matter what cutter you use this tip will work.  
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Wool tends to bunch and stick to the cutter blades when there is a static buildup from the dry air of winter or if taken from the dryer. 
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A dob of hand cream on the wrist of the hand that turns the handle.  
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Rub the fingers of the hand that will hold the wool in the hand cream. 
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Press down on the wool with your fingers, firm enough to keep the wool running smoothly but loosely enough that the wool can be pulled beneath it into the cutting blade rotation.   You can see that the cut strips coming out of the blades is straight and not sticking or bunching.  
12 Comments

Cutting wool properly is key...

2/18/2020

11 Comments

 
I was recently asked about fraying wool and thought I would do a blog about cutting the various strips and what to look out for.
 
When cutting wool into finer cuts, you have to be very careful how it goes through the cutter blades.  When I say finer, I mean #3, #4, and #5.  Even thought the #5 is the middle of the road, it is still pretty narrow so if you go across the Warp as you feed it through the cutter, and cut a major fiber of the Warp, you’ll experience some fraying. 
 
First of all, unless you cut your wool with the intensity and control of a robot, there will always be a small amount of fraying.  We are human and far from perfect, but as long as we pay attention and do the following, we can maximize better cuts and the fraying will be limited.
 
When cutting the #6, #7, and #8 strips they are generally wide enough to keep the wool intact with less fraying but even those can be compromised beyond use if the wool gets cut more on the diagonal or bias than the straight.  I once had an angry client that came into the shop and told me my wool was rotten.  She said it disintegrated while she was hooking with it.  She’d been at a hook-in and goodness knows what people thought of our wool as she raved about its inferiority. She brought in a ball of what she had cut and quite frankly it looked like a rat’s nest minus the rat.   She showed me the piece she was cutting from and it had started out as a ½ yard piece, now down to about a ¼ yard and the cut edge was a at least at a 45-degree angle, cut totally on the bias.  Every time she put it through the machine it shifted as the bulk of it pulled, what I call drag, away from the cutting area.  The wool was cut completely on the diagonal until all of the vertical fibers (the Warp) had been severed through and the Weft had nothing to hold it together.  Our beautiful piece of wool was nothing but fluff.   
 
Some wools are woven in a looser weave and even washing it does little to felt it tight and that has to come into account when judging what width of strip it will need.    
 
Wool should always be hand torn to achieve a straight edge to cut along.  Never use scissors to cut a straight edge to put through a machine. Unless you’ve used a magnifying glass and have the steady hands of a surgeon, I guarantee you’ve already compromised it!   TORN EDGES ONLY!
 
1. If you use plaids or textures the weave can be different than the warp and weft of a solid wool and don’t fare as well hooked with the smaller cuts.  Now after saying that I should say that I know someone who once cut a herringbone in a #3 and it was perfect to hook with, but she guided the wool through the machine as if she was doing delicate brain surgery. For cutting plaids, I would recommend nothing less that a #6 and only if the weave is tighter than some of their looser cousins.  I usually cut plaids and textures in a #7, my go to for backgrounds.
 
2. Cutting straight on the Warp as the wool goes through your cutter is paramount.  Never use too wide a piece of wool as it will create drag and want to fall off the edge of the machine; pulling it away from the blades so that you need to keep adjusting it and that action causes the wool to snake back and forth and goes through the blades like a Cape Breton highway.   My rule is never put pieces of wool through the machine that are over 3 inches wide.  If cutting smaller cuts like a #4 or #3 I put though an even smaller width.
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3. If you go a bit wonky when cutting, then turn the wool over and cut the other side.  If you want to check to see how your cuts are doing, take one cut strip and pull both ends and see if little fingers of wool spring up on the edges; that means you've cut it across the grain and expect some fraying.  Seeing one here and there is fine.  
 
4. The most important tip to cutting wool in a machine is having hand torn edges that are straight along the Warp. Then even more important, is paying strict attention as it goes through as straight as possible as it is fed through the blade.  I press the wool to the flat surface of the machine enough that it stretches the wool a bit but still feeds out from under my fingers into the blade.  My hand doesn’t move so the wool generally keeps its straight feed along the edge of the flat surface and into the blade.  If I go off a bit, then the next set of cuts will be off as well, so I correct it right away either by turning the wool over to the other torn edge side or by tearing the piece down the center of the wool and cutting from these inside straight edges.     
 
5. Hooking can also mess with the integrity of wool strips.  Holding your hook like a pencil can directly impact how your wool survives coming out of the hole. If you hold it like a pencil and go down straight and pull the loop straight up through the hole both sizes of the strip rubs the backing and it will fray from both sides.  To minimize fraying, you can hold your hook like you are peeling carrots and go in from the side and back out the same way.  That way it only rubs the one side of the wool as it comes out of the hole, not the piece snugged into the hook.  Using a primitive hook for wider cuts will also help to cut down on the fraying as that hand made fat shank will make the backing hole open and allow the wool to freely pull through.  It also reduces tugging so there is less stress on the wrist.    
 
6.. Recycled wool is sometimes thinner and will fray more.  I feel the best wool on the market for rug hooking is the Dorr wool, it is the perfect weight, felts beautifully and can be cut in #2 or #3 without fraying, but then again, no wool can withstand improper cutting.  One tip I used back in the day when I was greener than grass and buying recycled wools from Frenchie’s; if it looks like wool used for summer suiting, even if it says Virgin 100% Wool, is not for this craft.  No matter how much you wash it in hot water or beat it up with jeans or sneakers in the machine, it will not thicken up or felt.  Worsted wool is not great either and my mantra was always, Worsted is the Worst! 
 
Selvage – When purchasing wool on the bolt or roll, the selvage is the finished edge of the fabric. It runs parallel to the grain or ‘Warp'. (after the selvage is removed, this is the edge that goes through your machines)

Warp – The lengthwise grain that runs along the entire length of the fabric.  It is the strongest grain with the least amount of movement.

Weft – This is the grain that runs the width of the fabric and has a bit of movement or stretch to it. 

Bias – The bias is at a 45* degree angle on the fabric.  This grain has the most stretch. 
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Selvage Edge
11 Comments

We are looking forward to 2020!!!

2/11/2020

0 Comments

 
​Looking back at 2019, we’ve had a busy year at the studio, with lots of familiar faces and new ones discovering what we already know, that hooking rocks!  I was delighted to hear that a group in BC just had an Encompassing Designs day where they displayed all the rugs they hooked from patterns purchased from our studio, while working on their current Encompassing Designs pattern projects.  How cool is that?!  I couldn’t be prouder and more pleased, except maybe seeing some pictures....hint!

We’ve had a number of bus loads of rug hookers at our doorstep in 2019 and we look forward to more in 2020.  You can’t imagine how proud that makes us feel and such an honour that we are selected as one of the highlights on a rug hooking tour of the province.  We are nothing without you, the wonderful customer, and we work hard to please.  There is no greater reward than to hear positive feedback.  Deborah, Shane and I work with you in mind, first, last and always.

I can't help but see Encompassing Designs through rose-coloured glasses this year.  With a number like 2020, it can't be anything but perfect vision ahead!  I have plans for this year and I hope to bring them all to fruition.   One step at time though so stay tuned! 

So we hope to chat with you this year either through Facebook, emails, blog comments, on the phone or walking across our threshold.  If you get the chance to visit our colourful studio, there is a rainbow hug awaiting you! 

My slogan this year is ​​Aahhh....the possibilities!   I'm making a stencil to paint it on the wall with a hook for the exclamation mark!  Cheers!
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I'm a little slow this year......

2/11/2020

2 Comments

 
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The holidays were a mixed bag of joy with a bit of the blues thrown in. Hubby was out working in Alberta and didn’t get home until December 30th so I put all of the celebrations on hold.  His brother and wife arrived from Ontario on Christmas Day to keep me company. Being alone for the holidays was going to be a downer and I so appreciated their presence, their love, and all the laughs.  

Our birthdays were the week before Christmas, mine on the 18th and hubby’s on the 19th.   It seems for all our special occasions, birthdays’ anniversaries etc, he’s never home and then as time passes, we tend to forget them, but this year, once he was home, we celebrated with a carrot cake and toasted the new numbers with a great Pinot Noir. Then New Years eve followed on the 31st and we brought in the new year together.  We dined on turkey on January 2nd.   It was a whirlwind couple of days but joyous and exciting. 

This year Christmas blind sided me.  It snuck up and caught me unprepared so I was beating the pavement a few days before Christmas doing last minute things.   I’d put out the effort for our annual rug hooking Christmas pot luck on the 11th but when that was over, I quickly lost momentum.   Perhaps feeling down about being alone sabotaged any desire to get things done.  I didn’t even do any Christmas baking which in hindsight was probably a blessing.  The mood I was in I might have eaten it all, instead I occupied my time reshaping the sofa cushions to fit my widening arse with little concern for much else.  I dulled my mind with a slew of British renovating shows and food competitions, meaningless distractions from my disappointment.  I kept saying it could be worse, no one died and I took comfort in that, but I think I deserved the right to feel a bit sorry for myself, there are so few things to celebrate and Christmas is the biggest and last hurrah before the end of an old year.

When my sister-in-law phoned to say they planned to arrive on Christmas day, my spirits lifted like a helium filled balloon.  I’d been playing Christmas tunes as if it was a cure for all that ailed me.  The sparkling tree lights burned day and night in an attempt to levitate my spirits but did little to dent my ebbing enthusiasm.  Company was the pill I needed to get out of my funk. 

I put the tree in by myself for the pot luck party and it was a challenge.  It’s a man’s job, heck anything that you can break a fingernail over is a man’s job, and this one was awkward and pressed my buttons. I had to cut a foot off the stump to fit the tree in the house and that’s when I discovered the darn trunk was like the leaning tower of Pisa. The struggle to hold it straight in the stand straight while I tightened the bolts exhausted my vocabulary of swear words.  The tree was as crooked as a ram’s horn and the branches on one side were a foot shorter than on the other with gaps between them too large to fill in with ornaments.  I’m not sure why I picked this one, it was cold that day and I didn’t want to be a bother to the people who offered to drive me to a lot in their truck so I took the first one they stood up for me.  It was an ugly ducking tree that I did my best to decorate into a beautiful swan but it ended up somewhere in-between.   

The dogs weren’t impressed as I struggled and mumbled a blue streak.  They were watching me with big eyes, that asked ‘who are you crazy lady and where’s mom?’  By the time I was finished and satisfied it wouldn’t fall over, I put water in the trough. I was covered in sticky sap and needed a nap on the sofa.  Then there was the ladder to the attic to contend with and hauling down the boxes of ornaments and lights. Once again, a man’s job, dangerous on my own schlepping all those containers and bags from the tiny hole in the ceiling while balanced on a small wooden ladder. It was exhausting so there was napping in-between trips up and down. By the time I got around to decorating the tree it was 1:00 AM.  And that’s when I realized I hadn’t remembered to buy new lights.  Last year some of the sets gave up the ghost and I forgot to buy more.   I like lights, lots of lights, like hundreds of twinkling stars in my living room, but all I had were three sets of 50 each, hardly enough illumination to be seen from the moon. 
   
Last year I started something new. I ran a string of coloured lights down the trunk of the tree, wrapping them around the core.  Then I used the white lights to do the outer branches.  With only three small sets there wasn’t enough to cover the tree so the upper part didn’t have much sparkly. If you look at a tree through squinted eyes with the room lights off, its clearly noticeable how the placement is. Fortunately, the top of the tree is where the coloured lights show through the most so it hid the white light shortage but I clearly had more tree than lights this year. It’s wasn’t the best tree we’ve ever had but far from a Charlie Brown, and for some reason I hated to take it down.  It lasted till the end of January sparkling up the place and filling me with blingy joy and it would shoot out its essence filling the room with a scent of spruce everyday as if to say thank you for keeping me around.  I’ve never had a tree up past New Years day but there aren’t any rules to follow or break, it gave me joy, enough said. 

I kept our grain fed, free range turkey on ice until hubby arrived home.   We decided to wait until after new years for the feast.  We partied hard ringing in the new year, downing Dark & Stormys like it was a cure for old age and played games and cards with friends and family until the wee hours.  We lit expired boat flares at the midnight hour and the sky radiated a pink glow.   In lieu of lobsters that were in short supply, we opted for homemade pizzas which might be a new tradition, or at least an alternating one.  They were deliscious and I discovered that the local pizza place sells raw dough and I bought two to make 16” pizzas for $3:00 each which eliminates messing around with dough at home. 

We only ever do turkey at Christmas and there is no better homey smell wafting throughout the house.  I’m not a big fan of the meat, I find it dry, but it’s a tradition of my childhood that tugs on memories of mom and the incredible feast she always placed before us.  It was tough not smelling it on Christmas, its part of the total magic of the day, but considering we basically treated it like any ordinary Wednesday, I got over it.  We made butter chicken and a salad for our Christmas meal with lots of wine to wash it down that helped obscure my view of the empty chair at the other end of the table.  

When hubby arrived home and walked through the door, we locked eyes and smiled, hugged ever so tightly and once again, all was right in my world. 

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    Christine Little has been ranked #5​ out of the 60 top rug hooking bloggers by Rug Hooking Magazine!

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    Max Anderson, Australia, recipient of my Nova Scotia Treasures rug.  An award of excellence for promoting Canada through his writing.  
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