Maritime Made from Eastlink TV taped a video about our studio!
 I awoke yesterday and realized it was March 20th, the day before the first full day of spring. Another year and the season has snuck up on me. Now spring is a great source of happiness and joy, but and there always seems to be a but, it signifies another year passing without finishing my Bunnies With Tulips rug. It’s been so long I can’t recall which year I started it and I could look back at previous blogs to find out, I have been hauling it out with optimism for some time, but I’m just going to move forward and do it!
Yesterday there were two hook-ins at the studio; the weekly afternoon one and the 3rd Wednesday of the month for the evening. I figured this was concentrated hooking time to finish the few loops needed to complete the rug, steam it and then go home for dinner. When I got back for the evening gathering, I zig-zagged stitched around the edge, cut it out and began adding the cording. I managed to whip one side before we said our goodbyes around 10:00 P.M. and then I went home determined to finish the job no matter how late the clock ground away. It was going to be done for the first day of spring. I was up till 3:00 A.M. working at the speed of sound until my right arm felt a bit unhinged from tugging the yarn through the hole, but I don’t begrudge the yawning today at all. There’s the rug binding to be added but that can be done down the road but I’m notorious for not doing that job. I hate working with needles and prick myself silly and last evening as I sewed in the cording, I rammed the needle under the skin around my right thumb nail for a big ouchy. I don’t know why I’m so clumsy with sharp, pointy things but I spazz and injure myself every time. So the rug is done and I am over the moon. I was inspired by a saying I saw on FB and copied to my page. The only thing standing between me and finishing this project are the three hundred others ones I want to start. So true! But is this really a viable excuse for procrastinating this long? So yesterday morning I dug out the wool to go with the rug and in the bag I discovered three other projects in various degrees of completion and I made a promise to them that I would do them before starting anything new. It’s time to put the horse before the cart. Shed all the weight of unfinished projects past to clear the way for future creativity. Inanimate objects seem to ferment guilt which clogs up my ability to embrace anything new without baggage. There was a lovely flying horse I designed for the Year of the Horse in 2014 that’s niggling me next. I love the verdigris horse and the red Chinese letters for New Years. With only one or two evenings worth of work to be had I’ll mark another forgotten soul off my list. I’ll be so light and carefree after this purge of guilt from unfinished projects I might just feel unencumbered glee when starting the next riser.
Although our yard is still packed with several feet of snow, the temperatures are all above zero this week; a sign that spring is around the corner. The driveway, already melted of all the white stuff, is actually a mud pit as the ground thawed; I got out my rubber boots, a positive sign of spring and better weather coming. Saturday the clocks went ahead an hour so the days are longer, good times are on their way. Spring, my favourite season, always takes me back to my childhood. All my best memories evolved from springtime, a simpler age when my family was young and blissful. It was a season of newness and discovery and freedom from the heavy clothing and harsh winters that we suffered through. One of my favourite memories is of the classic pussy willow. I remember tickling the soft buds under my nose, teasing our cat with them, and we always had a vase full on the kitchen counter. I think my generation was so fortunate to be nature walkers, taking strolls on Sunday with mom and dad to explore the wooded area behind our house. The smell of outdoors was intoxicating. Pine scented, it would tattoo itself on my nose and my clothes so I would carry it with me throughout the day. There were so many treasures to be found and mysteries to unfold to intrigue an inquisitive kid like me. Spider webs spanning the paths glistened with morning dew. Beads of water shimmering like diamonds on the web, intoxicatingly beautiful; my five year old brain was mesmerized. I was a constant question back then, one leading directly into another like a string of pearls. I needed to know the why and the how of all things, what bird was singing, what is the name of that mushroom, does a fairy live under it? My questions probably disturbed my parent’s ears as well as the flora and fauna of the quiet woods. The wind in the swaying trees sounded like whispers overhead while the soft pine needle carpet felt like walking on clouds. How I remember the May flowers with their delicate pink petals and their exquisite scent. If I close my eyes I can easily relive this delicate sweet perfume. Lady slippers, a dainty pink, so abundant and elegant, like ballerina shoes peppering the forest floor, so very many of them back then, so few of them now. So much beauty in nature, one only has to look to see her bounty There are many versions of how the Pussy Willows got their name. One such story is this old Polish legend. The story began many springtime’s ago with a mother cat crying at the bank of a river in which her kittens were drowning. The willows at the river's edge longed to help her, so they swept their long graceful branches into the waters to rescue the tiny kittens who had fallen into the river while chasing butterflies. The kittens gripped on tightly to their branches and were safely brought to shore. Each springtime since, goes the legend, the willow branches sprout tiny fur-like buds at their tips where the tiny kittens once clung. There are other versions of the tale, although not as sweet and without a happy ending, so I chose this explanation as the one that best represents our darling pattern. The design was inspired by my mother-in-law who showed me an old drawing she’d found on a vintage post card. I embellished it more by adding the fun border to frame these sweet little kittens. A kitten is the poster child for all things soft, fluffy and adorable and this pattern offers the option to make it all three as well. I have seen several versions of it hooked, each one telling the story perfectly. Sometimes the pussy willows are sculpted for extra texture and interest. I smile every time I see it and recently caught a glimpse of another version of this rug on Facebook, hooked and hanging at the show at Ross Farm.
 I’ve completed my ninth stair riser with six more to go. There will be 15 risers on this staircase to nautical heaven. This one is called Customize It so the rug hooker can add their family name, cottage name or their boat name to personalize the rug. I chose to add our boat name Catalyst II, Nonsuch 33.
The name you choose will be flanked by two stylized fish/sea monsters. I had a great deal of fun colour planning and hooking them with six values of red and some green highlights. I hooked it in a #3 strip for the detail and for small objects such as these, even with the smaller cuts the work went quickly. I love how they both look and feel like velvet. When I started this business I designed a lot of Compass Rose patterns. I love anything nautical and some of the old maps I used as references had wonderfully stylized sea serpents and creatures around the periphery. Some of the oldest compass rose designs found were on these maps and I took our Red Sky At Night design from one that was dated in the early 1400’s. I love the compass rose, the epitome of nautical spirit. I’ve very pleased with my latest riser and it takes its place proudly on the staircase. There are enough of them now to sew the backs and attach them with Velcro in a permanent position, if only I had a PA to follow me around and do my bidding. I love to hook but sewing, that nasty, blood thirsty needle, turns me off so I procrastinate until I can no longer justify putting it off and then let the swearing begin. The next riser is my Sea Serpent and Shane has created a new green for me suitably named Sea Serpent Green. I visualize this green with yellow undertones paired with red and gold accents, but who knows what will transpire once I begin. I like to think I have a plan but once the loops are pulled my thinking can do a 180 shift so we will see what direction I take as far as accent colours go. I must say I am thrilled to begin, the possibilities for the colour placement are exciting. The two vertical dashes on the right of our boat name is not a quotation mark so I made it look more like a roman numeral with a skinny antique red line on the top and the bottom. Our boat name is Catalyst ll. My hubby thought it might confuse someone and it did so I had to rectify it. Thanks for pointing this out peeps! By Guest Blogger Sharon Loeppky Hi Christine. I'm back from my Indian adventure. I'm so glad that I decided to do the textile art while there - the Gujarati are definitely a people with an understanding of "handwork". Although most of the local people in the Kutch didn't speak much English they all wanted to connect with a stranger who also worked with fabric. So many of the woman wanted to either show me that they, too, knew how to hook, or they wanted to try it. I'm sending you a few pics of some of the little pieces that I made (designs based on Google Earth screen shots of the region). I'm also including a few shots of your frame in India!
 We had a chimney fire last Thursday evening complete with a 911 call, two trucks with sirens blazing like the fire in our flue, screaming to a halt in front of our house. Luckily we didn’t experience any damage but it was frightening to see foot high flames shooting out of the top of the chimney against the backdrop of a night sky while acrid smoke permeated the house. The firemen checked the walls with a Thermal Imagine, looking for hot spots from the first floor to the attic, to make sure there wasn’t any fire smoldering behind the walls, waiting to explode and devour our home. They emptied the woodstove of the burning logs and then hung around until they were confident the drama was over and left us shaking and scratching our heads. Two important details of note. The firemen told us there has been an unusual amount of calls for chimney fires this year. One fireman told us that he had his cleaned in December and a month later had a chimney fire. We had our Sweep guy do our annual cleanout in November, but when he came on Friday to clear out the charred remains, he took out five buckets full of blackened soot and buildup. He told us that twelve of his customers had fires this winter. He could only offer assumptions as to why, perhaps the wood isn’t seasoned enough and/or the cold temperatures are slowing the smoke and sparks from carrying up the chimney. He said because we live along the water there is more moisture in the air, probably a contributor to creosote accumulation. For whatever the reason or a combination of all, the conditions were ripe for a fire. Of course, outside chimneys are more susceptible to build-up due to not being insulated from the harsh temperatures cooling them, so they don’t burn as clean. Because of what we’ve been told and experienced, I’m suggesting those of you with chimneys, get a mirror and a flashlight to check out your flue, better to be safe than sorry. As a solution, we are going to buy the equipment to clean our chimney once a month. Gows Home Hardware sells the brushes and the rods to do the job. A lot rests on being diligent, and this will be a small price to pay for peace of mind. We will also clean the inside stove pipes every two weeks instead of every month; it’s marked on the calendar now so we won’t forget or become complacent. I don’t want to see another fireman in my house unless he’s been invited for a social gathering but I’d like to give a big thank-you to the guys that came to our rescue, Mahone Bay’s finest! The stress drove my blood sugar as high as Everest and later I didn't sleep well, my mind churning through the what ifs, as my mood stayed blacker than the thin sheet of ash that covered the snowy yard after the chimney erupted like a brick volcano. Although I don't think we were in any immediate threat of losing everything, I still prepared for the worst, grabbing the pups and their coats, car keys, my rings, both laptop computers and the Baby Magic Doll that was staring at me from a shelf in the living room, her big beautiful eyes seemed to say, “don’t leave me behind!” I stood by the door and looked around and I thought what else should I grab, my mother-in-law's silver tea set? More jewelry? Some of the Blue & White dish collection from the obsessive amounts that hang on the walls and fill the cupboards? I stood dumb founded by indecision, not able to think of a single item I couldn’t live without. I figured I wouldn’t miss anything too terribly but I would mourn the inconvenience of the aftermath of a fire, the insurance claim, purchasing new clothes, finding a place to live in the interim and then a possible rebuild. I’ll bet dollars to donuts our next home wouldn’t look anything like the footprint of our current one. We live in a moderate sized house filled to the brim with things. Surely we’ve accumulated something worth the trouble to tuck under our arm and flee! Nothing worth dying over obviously, but if time allowed surely I could have come up with something that might have made the loss of everything less of a hardship. I was more worried that I had a hole in the heel of my one sock, thinking great, that’s what I’ll have to live with until we can find some things to wear. I had on clean underwear, my mom would be proud that her constant nagging is still working. Luckily I was wearing my favourite bra, a good bra is worth its weight in gold, and as I looked down at the shirt that I was wearing I figured it wouldn’t be too much of a hardship to have to sleep in it, perhaps even in the car for the first homeless night. So after the firemen left and the quiet engulfed me, I rewound and played the entire evening in my head, over and over to make sense of it all. I came away from the experience with an interesting view of my life, contemplating what is worthy and finding the list relatively small compared to the size of our possessions. Our homes, our nests and the stuff in them is our mark on this planet...our properties makes us unique and individual....setting us apart from the Jones. But, if none of it really matters why are we buying or building mammoth homes and purchasing stuff to fill them? Why is it so important to have things if we can live without it? Someone once told me “Your house might be nice, but if you ever get cancer it won’t mean a damn thing.” Well maybe it doesn’t mean that much now, if I can turn my back on it within a few heartbeats while making split second decisions on what survives and what doesn’t? Obviously we give stuff too much credence, way too much effort, and throw too much money at it. Seriously, why couldn’t I have come to this realization in my youth when I was building our nest and dragging home stuff to fill the halls and rooms as if that’s what truly mattered? Starting over today, we’d be minimalists, parked in a bungalow with the bare necessities to exist comfortably. No dusting a bunch of items that serve little purpose but to look at, not having closets and cupboards filled with items that are forgotten; only being surrounding with things that matter. Once again, less seems to be more. A house fire can start and develop into life threatening chaos in a matter of minutes but what would you save if you had two minutes to grab possessions? In this scenario, the family and pets are safe on the lawn and you have 120 seconds to rescue the things you can’t live without? What would they be? Something to think about.....  |
Christine Little has been ranked #5 out of the 60 top rug hooking bloggers by Rug Hooking Magazine!
 
Max Anderson, Australia, recipient of my Nova Scotia Treasures rug. An award of excellence for promoting Canada through his writing.
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