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Ginny Zinck is coming around the home stretch! The center is now finished so she's working on the border. Doing a bang up job Ginny! This has to be one of the most beautiful rugs I've seen! Alice is a pattern available on my New Designs in the pattern section.
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Baa, baa, black sheep, Have you any wool? Yes, sir, yes, sir, Three bags full....of strips!  If my memory serves me correctly, this was Shelley's first rug. What does one do with bags full of cut strips? Hit and miss is always an option but I say, "When life gives you scraps, make scrap mats!" This is the perfect design for all those leftovers we seem to collect like dust and wrinkles. Cut strips are difficult to use for colour planning so it is important to cut as little as possible during each hooking session to limit the leftovers at the end of the rug. It is also impossible to accurately gauge the amount of wool a bundle of strips represents unless you are anal enough to lay them all out, side by side to calculate the square inches it will allow when transformed into loops. I have a rule when I hook. I never cut more strips than I can use in 1/2 hour period. This forces me out of the chair to stretch and move around, guaranteeing that I don't seize up. Also, it helps keep the scraps down to a minimum. Twice, in the past, I've donated the shop's accumulated leftovers to the hooking women of San Miguel de Allende, who make rugs to support their families. Every few years or so, I put out a call to our hooking group for donations and we get a package together to send to our hooking sisters of Mexico. Check out the website of the Las Rancheritas "The Rug Hook Project". http://www.charlottebell.com/rugs/about.htm The above rug was hooked by Shelley Richardson and the one below is hooked by our Scottish hooking sister, Brigitte Webb. They are similar in colour because Brigitte ordered a kit back when she began hooking because she hadn't acquired a stash of her own leftovers. I'll bet that is no longer a problem considering what a prolific hooker she is. The great thing about this pattern is the ability to substitute out the various motifs to personalize the design. One block is left empty to add your initials, date or both. I like the way Shelley mixed up the various backgrounds to add more interest and levels of colour. Great job to the both of you!  Brigitte proudly displaying this wonderful story rug in a photo sent all the way from Scotland. Scrap Mat 23 1/2" x 31 1/2", every segment is exciting and tells a story. Not much in the way of boring background so this rug is a thrilling to hook from start to finish. This is an opportunity to add splashes of colour. One will never tire looking at his piece, discovering something new and exciting every time you look.  I love the clever way she signed this piece. Follow the alphabet to the letter L and see the B for Burch, Lorraine Burch. Lorraine Burch has to be the most wonderful grandmother a kid could want. She comes bearing hugs, kisses and a one of a kind rug. So much better than frankincense and myrrh! Each grand baby gets a rug to grow with, all from grandma's imagination and heart. I asked Lorraine what she thinks about as she hooks each commemoration and she said that she thinks about the family, being little and growing up. She begins each rug with a design of the house they are brought home too. No matter if they stay in the house or move the fondest memories of their childhood will be rooted there. The alphabet represents learning and the books they will read, following in the tradition of samplers of bygone days. The rug can also serve as a game board to play on. Of course, Lorraine always hooks in the birth date along with each child's name. In this case lucky little Hazel was named for her grandmother, Lorraine's mom, the Marie is for the mothers middle name and Rae is for Madison, their first grandchild who passed away in 2011, who is very dear to the family's collective heart. Andrew, Lorraine's son and Hazel's father, said the little girl was named for the very strong females in their family tree. Hazel was born on St. Patrick's Day and how fitting when the great grandmother is of Irish decent and Andrew, the proud daddy was born on his grandmother's birthday and mother Jen used to be a Green. There are two little faces peeking out from behind the tree on the right. In a previous project Lorraine hooked Ethan, Hazel's big brother, in his birth rug so she didn't want Hazel asking down the road..."Nanna, why didn't you hook me?" So Hazel and Ethan are playing hide and seek behind the tree. This is #6 in the line of gift rugs for newborn members of the family of the family. Previously she has completed rugs for four grandchildren and two grand neices. She likes hooking a one of a kind rug that will grow with each child, cementing a very special bond of a grandmother's love to a memory that will last for generations.  A special rug for Stella Lorraine, born last November. She had hooked everything in this rug except the second name and birth date, waiting for the special bundle to arrive. Here was was whipping the rug and to have it ready at a moments notice to fill in the details and deliver it. I wrote this bit of prose a few years back when a CBC Radio show, Richardson's Round-up, (Bill Richardson)) put out a call for submissions of verse about panties. They were going to compile the winning entries into a published book. This was a "little" verbiage I whipped up. It didn't make the cut but was fun to do. This is a true story. The woman at the line was my mother and the Police Chief was a real wolf in sheep's clothing, who had a known appetite for afternoon delights. In our old neighbourhood the empty cruiser was found parked next to the Legion often. Mom used to peek through the curtains at Mrs. So-In-So's house, whose husband made a lot of trips out of town. Back then, I remember overhearing my dad say the Chief was screwing the taxpayers, but I don't know if it was a figurative or literal comment...although in this case, it could have been both.....  I hooked this piece last evening to go with the poem....tying in a bit of rug hooking with a bit of fun. THE PROPOSITION
The Chief of Police was a man of size triple chinned and bold as brass who sought entrance to the boudoirs of stay-at-home wives using his badge as leverage to prey on loneliness with wolfish charm. One day he glimpsed a woman hanging laundry her dress whipped by summer breezes, wrapped tight against her form a rarer beauty had never been seen with raven hair like flowing silk and lips of ruby, full and sensuous. His hungry eyes devoured her thirsting her essence through parched desire, he entered her driveway with more on his mind than a social call to be greeted with a neighbourly smile from lips that could set a lover’s heart ablaze. Possessing her made him eager and brash but this woman was not to be fooled and the twinkle in her eye turned to merriment as he canted his proposition “If you ever get lonely, hang three pairs of panties on the line, a sign the coast is clear.” Amused, the woman's smile transformed to gales of laughter slashing away at his arrogant pride turning his face fifty shades of red he quickly drove off with his tail between his legs licking the wound of rejection. Occasionally, the woman would notice other wash lines about town with a trio of panties strung along the wire silky invitations to private liaisons and a black and white cruiser never far away parked in conspicuous places. THE END  You can’t accuse me of being bias, for I speak the truth.....the simple fact is that I am married to the most wonderfully man in the universe. A creature so rare that I dare not speak of his attributes or I would be responsible for the envy of women and the dissension among men. Our relationship is fairy tale and considering the long line of toads I was kissing, well, all I can say "it's quite the relief".
It was the luck of the draw, a one in a million chance meeting that brought us together, ironically by the hand of the guy I was currently dating, the last toad in the long succession of bully frogs. Well aware that as couple we were going nowhere, I’d been tolerating him for months as an escort to social functions while I waited for Mr. Right to happen my way. Despite my lack of luck in the romance department, I still held on to the hope that there was someone out there who would treat me with decency and respect. The guy I was dating began as love at first site and seemed to have a lot of promise, but as the petals of our rose quickly wilted and dropped, so did his civility towards me. It was all about power struggles and games with him, a tiring relationship with a dead end future. I had been married to someone abusive and after the divorce I dated a few Mr. Wrongs, but this guy was really hurtful in his attitude toward me, personal stuff I don't need to divulge but degrading in his comments and just as a small example, continually told me I was fat when my body was leaner than a steel fence post. I knew I would never live under the same roof with him. He was a belittling person, one who constantly put himself first, as he stomped others into the ground with his judgements and criticisms. He was by far the most arrogant and condescending person I have ever met, and not just to me but everyone around him. There was never any loyalty for friends or family as everyone was on his chopping block. From the moment we met he called me Chrissy, a variation of my name that I never liked. He asked what I preferred to be called, Christine, Chris or Chrissy and when I said the latter annoyed me, Chrissy it was. From day one he wanted to burrow under my skin as any irritant would and create a rash or festering sore. In the beginning, I cared for him so it was more like teasing, but in a few months the veneer of tolerance was gone and he just infuriated me. But in the meantime we had a group of friends that I liked and wanted to stay in contact with and I knew that would stop as soon as we split. The first time he took me home to meet his mother she'd prepared a lovely lunch of curried haddock and salad. The food was lovely and served on china with sterling flatware and linen napkins. This was the life I longed for, a bit of civility and class. I was, and still am, an old soul with a fetish for bone china, formal tables settings and polishing the family silver. I was young and figured I could learn a lot from his mom who was very comfortable with the finer things in life. So we are sitting at a lovely table, lunch is delicious and the conversation is flowing in this get-to-know me gathering. I finished the delightful lunch leaving one lone slice of tomato on the plate, placed my utensils in the proper finished position and dabbed the corners of my mouth with my napkin while thanking my host for the meal. She looked at my plate and then at me and said, "There's just that little piece of tomato left, surely you can eat it." It was a statement not a question. Now I just came from a long marriage with a mother-in-law from hell. She took great pleasure in using me as a kicking can and her cruelty had fewer boundaries than her abusive son. The apple didn't fall from that tree and truthfully her son had a great teacher. Something inside of me clicked, like a switch going off. If this relationship kept heading into the future, I didn't want our relationship to start with her telling me what to do, especially when I ws trying to gain my self esteem back from the hard knocks of my past. I knew from experience, once that Pandora is out of the box, you can't stuff it back in. So I said very politely, that I was full and was saving myself for dessert. She smiled and reached across the table and pushed my plate closer and said once again, "Well it's only one little slice, surely you can fit that in?" There was something in her tone that unsettled me and they way she was staring at me from under her furrowed brow. Truthfully I didn't like tomatoes and only ate the one slice out of respect for my host. I've always found tomatoes too acidic and they make the roof of my mouth feel raw. So I said. "Well, tomatoes aren't my favorite thing, I would rather save myself for dessert." And once again she reached over and pushed my plate even closer, now it was hanging a bit over the edge of the table, one more good push and it would be in my lap. "Come on, you can eat it. It's only one little slice." The sound of her voice was almost frantic now, the sweetness had abandoned ship. I said nothing so she reached over yet again and gave the plate one teensy little push, not enough to topple it but now it was hanging on by a hair. "Oh, come on, eat the tomato!" Now things were awkward. All eyes were on me and I was trying to figure out what to say or do next when her son, my date, jumped up and screamed at his mother "JC mother...why don't you just cram it down her GD throat?!!" (I've abbreviated the swear words as not to offend.) Well, his mom started to cry, the father started hollering at his son and I wanted to crawl under the table and take that piece of tomato with me. I wondered what in blazes just happened? I would find out sooner than later that there was a lot of arguing in that house, mother and son pushing each other's buttons. They were a family of scrappers and the mom and her sisters had a history of drag em out fights. My date grabbed my arm and dragged me out of there as I blurted out a few apologies. The whole lunch was in ruins. How I wished I'd eaten the bloody tomato or hidden it in my purse or something. Although in retrospect, I think it was all for the best, letting me know the score in the early days. So we are out in the car and I'm looking at him with different eyes knowing that once again I'd made a mistake in judgement. So I say to him, "That was uncalled for, I hope you don't think you can treat me that way?" To which he replied...."I have more respect for you Chrissy...." I knew right then I was in trouble and put the breaks on my feelings. My mother's wise words always warned that you can tell how a man will treat you by the way he treats his mother. Somehow I was attracting the wrong kind of fella, there must have been a big D for doormat plastered on my forehead. I remember the evening that changed my life and broke old patterns well. We were at the Blockhouse Fire hall, May 28th, 1988, for a fund raising dance to promote the Mahone Bay Tennis Club. The band was fantastic, playing fifties tunes that filled the crowd with nostalgia. As in any typical date, there I sat, while our friends were out on the floor cutting a rug. I was dying to dance but Mr. Controversy saw fit to be antagonistic, not give the lady what she wants which pretty much summed up our entire relationship. While he was content to annoy me and sip his scotch, I’m tapping away with feet and fingers to the music, bopping my little heart out and dying to get out on the floor. I asked him three times to dance before spite crawled to the surface and I did a mental calculation of how long it would take to hoof the two kilometers home. “Why did we come here if you had no intention to dance?” I asked. “Look, Chrissy”, oh how he loved to drag out the syllables to purposely irk me, then continued in his pompous way…”If you want to dance so much, why don’t you ask someone.” He was gleefully pushing my buttons, he almost squirmed from the pleasure of it all. The thought of me out there cruising for a dance partner delighted him. Probably because he thought I would fail. Being a newly divorced woman, still young and rather fit, I could have stirred the pot as women guarded their men from the clutches of a wanton divorcee. “I don’t know anyone here without a partner,” I retorted haughtily, “But if there was a single, available man I’d ask him to dance in an instant.” And I snapped my fingers with sass, to show how fast I would act. I guess he took that as a personal challenge because he brazenly stood and pointed his finger into the crowd, moving it around while combing the hall for prospective dance partners. He swung a few degrees to the left and his pointer landed on a man that I’d never seen before. “Look, Chrissy, there’s Gregg Little” he enunciated the words in a hissing sort of way and continued, “He’s new in town, and single, why don’t you go over there and ask him to dance?” Then he laughed like a hyena and looked at me so smugly I fought the urge to slap him. “I don’t know him, but if you introduce me, I’ll ask him!” Of course we were hollering, the music was very loud but he heard me and collected my hand, patting it as we parted the throng of gyrating dancers on our way across the hall. Gregg sat alone, nursing a rum and coke while watching the crowd on the floor. He jumped up as we approached and seemed genuinely happy to meet me. After brief introductions, where I was referred to as Chrissy, I stuck my hand out for a shake and said firmly that my name was Christine and then promptly asked if he would like to dance. So we danced....then danced again, pretty much danced every number, chatting in between sets and then back up on the floor as soon as the music fired up again. This guy clearly knew how to speak to a woman, was mannered to the hilt, interesting and cute. I was kicking up my heels and having one heck of a time when the boyfriend, who I had forgotten about and who apparently realized his arrogance had backfired, cut in with the line, “Hey, Chrissy, they’re playing our song!” I didn’t miss a beat as I shouted back, “Since when did WE ever have a song?” After that he sat in a corner and sulked, like the immature baby that he was, while I continued to enjoy the music and the new guy. Gregg was turning out to be very nice and if the truth be known, I would have allowed him to escort me home if he’d asked, maybe I secretly hoped he would, but I knew I had to breakup with the old before I started anything new. If Gregg wondered about my relationship with my so called date, he never asked, and if he had I would have told him right then and there that the guy barely qualified as a friend. No one treats a friend the way he treated me so it wasn’t far from the truth. It was anything but a quiet ride home. The two kilometers was used to tell him exactly what I thought of him. My sights were now on someone a little further up the evolutionary scale, a real man, with manners, who believed that decency was always the right choice. I ended up marrying Gregg, and have never looked back. He shows me respect, equality and love, all any person can ask for. He never has a harsh word for me no matter how frustrating I might get. Mother always said that you kiss a few toads before you find your prince, and I happily crawled out of the swamp that warm spring evening at the Mahone Bay Tennis club dance and never looked back! |
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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