Blog Archives

DESIGN #15 - GEOMETRIC MELANGE

4/25/2023

I thought I would do something fun for the month of April. The creative juices are flowing and I am working on twenty new patterns to add to our line of designs. I will be launching them all this month. Five patterns a week from Monday to Friday, starting today and winding down on Friday 28th. Some are smaller, some larger and all else in between. There are a few new Christmas designs, a bit of whimsy, a geometric, an interesting contemporary choice, etc. Let’s see what I can pull out of my hat.

Design #15 is called GEOMETRIC MELANGE

Although I really like this design, I question what I was thinking. Every line has to be straight on the grain so that means 95% of it had to be drawn by hand, not with a red dot but with a pencil in the grooves of the weave and then darkened in with a marker. Labour intensive to say the least. Maybe, just maybe this might be a one off, once sold it could be retired just because it wouldn’t be cost effective unless the price was reflected in the labour and materials. There is only so much of a ceiling to what I can charge for a pattern, but then again perhaps I’m wrong. The other day I saw a pattern that would take me five minutes to draw and was 11” x 14” and priced at $58.00. I’d call that was highway robbery with a side order of gouging but people are paying those prices while I have detailed patterns that take hours to draw that I’m told are too expensive.
My patterns are priced for size and detail. If you like my kind of designing and see the love I put into each one, you are greatly appreciated. I’m a diverse designer, never the same pattern twice with a full gamut of topics. I like to think there is something for everyone. And you know that whatever comes out of the studio is top quality, perfectly drawn designs that will stand the test of time. Every purchase of every pattern is a feel-good moment for me.

Something funny happened the other day when a long term customer dropped by for a chat. The person saw my sketch book on the desk featuring a new design I was playing with and said, “That’s nice”. Then added in a question form, “You can draw?” I chuckled inside but kept a straight face and said, “Who do you think draws all these patterns?” This person has hooked for a number of years and has completed many of my patterns so I’m not sure where it came from. Perhaps a bit of foot in mouth? Just in case others wonder as well, our designs don’t come from China and they don’t fall off the turnip truck, they are inhouse creations by myself, Deborah Sweet and others.

So this little gem is a geometric lovers dream. Once again, hubby named it, perhaps I need to put him on the payroll? The name is kind of perfect actually, like him.

Design #15 – Geometric Melange 20" x 31"
https://www.encompassingdesigns.com/new-designs.html

4 Comments

DESIGN #14 - LIFE'S A BEACH!

4/21/2023

3 Comments

DESIGN #13 - GINGERBREAD TREEATS

4/20/2023

1 Comment

DESIGN #12 - SANTA'S WISH; CHRISTMAS SNOW

4/19/2023

13 Comments

I thought I would do something fun for the month of April. The creative juices are flowing and I am working on twenty new patterns to add to our line of designs. I will be launching them all this month. Five patterns a week from Monday to Friday, starting today and winding down on Friday 28th. Some are smaller, some larger and all else in between. There are a few new Christmas designs, a bit of whimsy, a geometric, an interesting contemporary choice, etc. Let’s see what I can pull out of my hat.

DESIGN #12 – Santa’s Wish; Christmas Snow

This cutey depicts what everyone wants for Christmas, snow. Young or old we want it white during the holidays. Years ago, it was pretty much guaranteed, and those toboggans, sleds and ice skates Santa brought got a lot of use that very day. Nowadays, its not a given, and it can be more brown than white and because of it, I’m not sure if sleds and skates are still top priorities as gifts under the tree.

As a child I had a lot of questions. How did Santa visit us when we didn’t have a fireplace with the customary chimney entrance, but apparently he had a magic key to unlock the front door, not a grand entrance but he got the job done. If it hadn’t snowed I kept an eye on the weather until bedtime, waiting for the snow to come fearful that Santa was not going to arrive in his sleigh with his eight tiny reindeer. Dad would make up a tale of horses and wagons, planes, trains and automobiles, whatever was necessary to reward all the good little girls and boys. Much to my delight, the old fella came no matter what and never disappointed. Truthfully, as a child in the 50’s and #60’s I don’t recall many Christmases that weren’t white, in December there would have been at least an older storm with snow still lingering. I remember those snowstorms of the past, snow ploughed almost up to the top of telephone poles, banks so high houses were lost from sight. We used to tunnel and make forts that we could stand up in, not that I was that tall back then but still, pretty impressive. We played outside until our mittens were soaked and our fingers were numb, we had red cheeks and nose candles. Those were the days.

Santa always preferred the reindeer and sleigh of course, he could land on roof tops and slip down the chimneys. He only ran into trouble if there wasn’t a chimney and had to land in the driveway. I don’t think anyone wanted snow on Christmas Eve more than Santa, I would imagine the view from his sleigh with the moon on the breast of the new fallen snow gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below. How brilliantly super.

DESIGN #12 – Santa’s Wish, Christmas Snow 25” x 32”
https://www.encompassingdesigns.com/new-designs.html

13 Comments

DESIGN #11 - GINGERBREAD HOUSE II

4/19/2023

5 Comments

I thought I would do something fun for the month of April. The creative juices are flowing and I am working on twenty new patterns to add to our line of designs. I will be launching them all this month. Five patterns a week from Monday to Friday, starting today and winding down on Friday 28th. Some are smaller, some larger and all else in between. There are a few new Christmas designs, a bit of whimsy, a geometric, an interesting contemporary choice, etc. Let’s see what I can pull out of my hat.

Design #11 is called GINGERBREAD HOUSE II

Once again life has gotten in the way of getting out the next design. I haven’t said much about my poodle Henri being ill unless you have visited the shop and it got brought up, so most don’t know what we’ve been going through. He started with a murmur and now his heart is so enlarged that it presses on his trachea making him cough and choke when excited or if he does the downward facing dog stretch or holds his head a certain way. I bring him to work with me because he would get so excited when I arrive home, he’d probably pass out. In his final weeks, months, possibly a year I want him with me 24/7. Covid has made this easy, hubby and I haven’t eaten out or had any kind of social life since the plague hit and if I go into the grocery store hubby is in the car with him.

Henri had an appointment at the vet college in PEI last October and we were told that by April of this year he would probably be in congestive heart failure but knock on wood, he has not progressed any further since that visit and his resting heart rate is anywhere between 14 and 18, down from 20 when he first saw the cardiologist. Fantastic proof that his lungs aren’t filling up with fluid as the water separates from the blood while pumping through the malfunctioning heart, signaling the end is nearing. I home feed him so he’s healthy so we are hoping things progress really slowly. He really wants to go sailing this summer, yup he told me, he loves the breeze in his hair, his ears flopping in the wind. He's my soulmate pup and I can’t think of what will come, of a life without my precious peanut, so we are both living in the moment.

Yesterday Henri had a bug of some kind and threw up his undigested breakfast around 3:00 PM in the shop followed by a splash of diarrhea so I left work early to bring him home and care for him, make sure his electrolytes were good and kept him hydrated. Today he is back to his normally jolly self so whatever that was passed. My pups come first in my life so the pattern was left on the desk waiting for the remaining darkening and photo today.

So here it is folks. My second gingerbread house. This one is a bit smaller and the front and back of the house is oriented differently. I plan to make another one, different once again, for a set of three and create a small village scene in the back room on the antique mantel.

Each one has different elements so they are exciting to hook. I haven’t assembled this one yet but I took a photo of the pieces already glued to their backings. I’ve designed and hooked two gingerbread trees with a third one in the making and there will be hooked suckers added to the village for splashes of candy colours to add to this sweet-toothed scene.

I loved designing and hooking these houses. They are better than the real thing without all the calories and messy, crumbling with age. Every year you can haul them out of storage looking as good as the day they were made. And if you are a Christmas kid at heart maybe you’ll leave them out to enjoy all year.

Gingerbread House II 10 ½” Tall at the peek
https://www.encompassingdesigns.com/new-designs.html

5 Comments

DESIGN #10 - AUTUMN PAISLEY

4/17/2023

13 Comments

I thought I would do something fun for the month of April. The creative juices are flowing and I am working on twenty new patterns to add to our line of designs. I will be launching them all this month. Five patterns a week from Monday to Friday, starting today and winding down on Friday 28th. Some are smaller, some larger and all else in between. There are a few new Christmas designs, a bit of whimsy, a geometric, an interesting contemporary choice, etc. Let’s see what I can pull out of my hat.

DESIGN #10 is AUTUMN PAISLEY

Well, I seem to be one pattern behind because today is supposed to be #11 but I will catch up this week. This project was probably more ambitious than I realized but I guarantee by the 28th of April I will have launched 20 new patterns, come heck or high water. I'm having a great deal of fun, and after what I've been through with Long Haul Covid, it's a breath of fresh air to be creating again. The smart thing would have been to design them all in advance and then launch them each day with ease, but when do I ever do anything easy or simple. I stopped beating myself up over the weekend end when I couldn’t make it to the shop to do up an extra one to fulfill the quota for last week.

It’s a big deal to draw a pattern on paper, work out the details and make sure it is hookable, create the red dot and then draw out the design on linen with a sharpie. The lines are always too light after the red dot is removed and they all need going over with a marker to darken them. It’s very labour intensive to be as neat as possible. Most of these new patterns, and most of our designs in general, are not simple with few lines and little detail. Most are crammed with creative elements; interesting borders and a lot are of decent size.

Today’s #10 is the largest so far in this project and I must be honest and admit that it was actually created several years ago so it isn't new to me but it is to you. It was forgotten in the heap of semi-finished designs, in various forms of completion, that are cluttering up my office. I truly forgot this one, being distracted by the business of running a shop. I’ve been digging around my office for various bits and bobs of ideas and notes and discovered it. I also unearthed a pattern I created back in 2000 that is the largest one to date, that I only made once, it sold and was hooked by a very talented rug hooker in Yarmouth in yarn and although I’ve not seen it finished, I heard it was spectacular. The poor pattern was then retired by a slip of memory. I was tickled pink to see it again and plan to make it up at a later time as it would take me all week to draw it out.

I used the center of Autumn Paisley as a free pattern in the Rug Hooking Guild of Nova Scotia newsletter The Loop back in 2016 so it’s been around awhile. I love the marriage of paisley and an October harvest of pumpkins, pomegranates, flowers, leaves and acorns. I even coloured it in at one point with these gorgeous autumnal colours and still managed to forgot about it. The initial drawing was small, 8” x 10” so I sent it out to be enlarged to 34” x 41 ½”, made the red dot and transferred it to linen today. For those that like hooking with wider cuts this pattern is perfect with the larger details and motifs, but for those that prefer the finer cuts, it would be perfect as well.

Autumn Paisley 34” x 41 ½”
https://www.encompassingdesigns.com/new-designs.html

Autumn Paisley coloured in using Photoshop.

13 Comments

DESIGN #9 - VANISHING POINT

4/15/2023

6 Comments

I thought I would do something fun for the month of April. The creative juices are flowing and I am working on twenty new patterns to add to our line of designs. I will be launching them all this month. Five patterns a week from Monday to Friday, starting today and winding down on Friday 28th. Some are smaller, some larger and all else in between. There are a few new Christmas designs, a bit of whimsy, a geometric, an interesting contemporary choice, etc. Let’s see what I can pull out of my hat.

Design #9 is called VANISHING POINT

Sorry I am two days late. I’m here in the shop on my own Thursday and Friday and it’s been busy. Then I bungled the first of this pattern and had to do it over. For all those that struggle drawing patterns I can relate. Although with 24 years experience drawing them on a large scale, I might be considered an expert at it but I still goof up occasionally. This morning I was distracted by hubby asking for assistance hanging a shelf in the dye kitchen for the big box of tin foil which I happily complied with, but when I started back at the pattern, I’d forgotten how the center went and put lines where they shouldn’t have been. The air was blue for a bit and my toe hurts from kicking the desk and when I couldn’t erase the marker lines, I resigned to the fact that it had to be done over and done right. A blood pressure meter would have come in handy to check to see if my head was about to explode but then again, maybe it's best not to know these things. I was under pressure to get it done for Thursday and now late, I wasn’t in the best form for taking it easy so my brain was rushing and the marker hand followed suit.

This one was a lot of hand drawn lines and the first pattern has to be perfect for the website photo. A photo will highlight a mistake as if a blinking neon arrow is pointing it out. The vanishing point comes out of each corner, criss-cross and then diminishes into a fine point in the middle of the rug, creating a diamond pattern in the center that houses squares within squares. I think they play well with the triangle's created in each quadrant by the vanishing points. Once again Hubby named it.

I love geometric design, anything ranging from traditional to contemporary. I once visited a home where the floors were covered in large hand-hooked rugs. They were the perfect complement to a step back in the past his home represented with all the wonderful antiques the owner, a past dealer, had accumulated. It struck me that even though the colours varied from rug to rug they were all perfectly cohesive. The common denominator was the geometric designs and they blended beautifully.

Vanishing Point 21 ½” x 36”
https://www.encompassingdesigns.com/new-designs.html

6 Comments