This pattern is 40" x 63"
This rug should have been called "Catch Your Eye". These fish definately won't be thrown back, they're keepers!
Seeing this charming version of Catch Of The Day made it worth coming to work on Monday. Definitely a great way to start the week! I’ve said it before, nothing compares to seeing my designs hooked…talented hands and so much passion working loops through something I created is definitely a rush. Together my customers and I are a team, a marriage of sorts. I bring the foundation and they supply the materials to create the union and we live happily every after until wear, rot or destructive pets rip us apart.
Joan Sponagle dropped by the shop for a show and tell and I asked if she would mind if I did a short story on her masterpiece. She was delighted to share the rug that she refers to as a rainbow of colour. Now that she is retired she works two to three hours a day on her hooking and this project took about four months to complete. She said everyone that sees the rug wants it, but it's going to be hung on a wall in her home…no feet will be ever walk upon its glory!
The rug is all done with #6 strips. This pattern doesn’t have any small detail so it is perfect for the wider cut. She used all new wool with a blend of solid brights, three values, spots and then plaids and herringbone for texture, which she said all came from my shop! It’s like she shook a box of Smarties and the different colours exploded on each fish.
I see something different every time I look! The rusty orange fish with its zig zagged lines is amazing; the richness and the way she striped each colour is very clever. I personally can’t decide which fish I like the best but if I had a gun to my head it would be a toss-up between the one with the blue and yellow scales and the fish with the rich blue and red.....but then again that pink one on the end with the squares is pretty nice... oh, and that green striped one....and then look at that one will the long horizontal stripes......oh my! How can you have favourites when they all catch your eye!
With the rug being such a blast of colour, whipping it in the standard black would have been boring so she opted to do a black and white effect by alternating between the two, which in turn fused the relationship with the center fish. She admitted this was tedious but she was happy how well it turned out although she’s not sure if she would do this again.
Joan said she saw Catch of the Day on display at the Art Under Foot gallery show that the Main Street Hookers held last spring. It was the one I hooked in much darker, antiqued colours and she knew immediately she would be hooking it but would be using a palette of brighter, happier colours. And so she did!
Joan holding up her catch after four months of fishing. Quite a haul! Is this not the happiest rug you've seen in a while?
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