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10 Shades of Grey.....

9/3/2014

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What can I say.  The shop is crazy busy.  Michelle was on vacation last week and not in until today so no parcels got out.  Usually we have a speedy turnaround but short handed we can only do so much.  My apologies to those waiting for orders, except for a few custom items, your parcels are in the mail today! 

What’s up with this humidity?  I hoped we were through with uncomfortable nights and sticky days.  My heat pump has been on the fritz so my hooking has slowed to ½ hour an evening.   It's uncomfortable to have wool fuzz sticking to me as the water drips down the back of my neck.  I sit under an Ott-lite and although it produces very little heat, it’s radiates just enough to make me sweat like a pig at an all you can eat bacon buffet.   I’m all about the comfort at this stage of my life, I no longer need to suffer for my art.  

I’m really loving the letter F.  Monochromatic hooking has always interested me.  I like the elegance of tones of one colour, and the challenge of placing the values for enough contrast to show separation.  Done in shades of grey it’s tricky to place the colours for contrast but I seem to be knocking it out of the park, if I do say so myself.  I love the muted softness of this palette, as if a big cat is purring under my hook. The F is for Felidae, the term for the big cat family, also feline and feral, all puddytat related words and the reason behind the spots.    
     
For this one I used an "as is" charcoal herringbone for the bulk of the letter with a solid black line for detail.  Then I had a three value swatch and a six value swatch of Charcoal for the details, leaves and flowers.  The lightest and medium value of the 3 value swatch was used for the vines and all of the animal spot centers.  The six values was used for the completed flower and will be hooked the same for the other two. Shane  had dyed a few Jacquard spots which inspired this colour palette. Smokey Eyes and Fog for the background.   I thought it would be more interesting than just a solid grey and I love the result.    It might not be 50 Shade of Grey, but it's still sexy!

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D is for darling....

7/30/2014

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Ah D, how do I love thee, let me count the ways…..

I love the fall colour palette of course, but outlining each motif and D with a #3 cut Eggplant really made everything pop.   The subtle rust plaid doesn’t show the striping but that’s okay, there is enough going on with all the interesting little leaves and flowers that a solid looking background is fine.   

I’ve been a bit distracted with this humidity. The heat pump lost its coolant so it’s been rough hooking and the last three days have been hell.  I wear scissors on a lanyard and it almost drives me insane from the heat the material traps to my neck.    I’m not a happy camper in the heat and as mentioned many times I swell to an uncomfortable bloat.  I waited until quite late in the evening but there wasn’t much cool air outside to bring down the core temperature of the house and let me tell you, I suffered for my art!

To keep my feet from hurting because they blow up like balloons I had to hook with them propped up on a stool and that only served to make them go to sleep so getting up for more wool each time was a bit of a hobble.   Really, life shouldn’t be this tough!    I feel like moving north to hug an iceberg. 

Anyway the repair guy came this morning to fix the problem so tonight I’ll be back at the wheel blasting down the hooking highway.  Only the wide cut background remains and I can whip that off in no time. 

The colours used in this one are Shamrock 3 Value, Goldenrod 3 Value, A bit of rust solid, and #022 rust plaid.  #6 cut Eggplant for all the vines and #3 Eggplant to outline everything. 


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"P" is now pink all the way!

7/24/2014

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I’m a bit off my game today.  I think this hot weather is taking its toll on me.  I awoke this morning to swollen hands and feet, very uncomfortable.   My shoes are tight and my rings are in a dish on the counter.  I’ve mentioned before that I’m not a sun worshipper and try to avoid being in the heat for too long, about as long as it takes the pups to do the business and water the garden and dash from the cool car to the house or the shop.    I don’t mind warm weather, nor does my body, but the stinking humidity makes me bloat like a dead whale on the beach.  Yesterday it was 31 and breath taking and not in the good sense.  I think a bit of a soak in the claw tub, a book and Epson Salts is in order for this evening. 

I worked on my letter P last night.   I ripped out the rest of the ivory and put in the pink and I love it now although I think I need to change the darker green herringbone vines to a purple colour to add to the glow of the pink hue.  I’ll do that this evening and then maybe start the D if my I can put my feet up to hook.   

The shop has been filled with tourists this summer.  Sometimes it’s standing room only.  I am amazed to hear that some folks travel to wee little Mahone Bay just for the rug hooking shops and museum.  To be a destination for someone’s vacation is mind boggling and the best feeling ever!  I burst with pride when I’m told they’ve marked our shop as their to go place.   Imagine that!   

Today a woman told me that she has wanted to come to my shop for the past seven years.  Wow!  Unfortunately I had to disappoint her as we didn’t have her patterns choices in stock or else they were on the wrong backing.  Nancy was leaving at 2:00 so we couldn’t make them up on the fly like we sometimes do and they weren’t able to come back the next day.  I can do them if the shop isn’t busy but I have to be available with my undivided attention if called on for help.    We bend over backwards when we can. 

We have a large inventory of patterns but can’t have them all available all the time.  Some of the more detailed ones take hours to do and once sold it takes time to reproduce them and they are on lists to be done.   We do the best we can but it is always a good idea to email or phone ahead with requests to make sure you aren’t disappointed, we hate to disappoint you!   Lots of times travelers will opt to have us mail it to their home so they don’t have to carry it around or over stuff their luggage.   

I had a great chat with Aryl and Harvey Polokoff from Indianapolis today.  Aryl hooks with the Puckihuddlers, what a fun name!   It means something like Cottage Industry With Hands.   There are 100 members of their group and Aryl is the president.  Harvey stood out in the husband department.  Very supportive of his wife’s interests, they are on a rug hooking tour of the province.  A love couple on a lovely journey! 

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G-lorious G is done!

7/15/2014

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Yesterday was amazing!   A customer phoned the shop and said that I was the most current and interesting rug hooking shop or something to that effect.  Usually words like that would be etched on my brain forever but we had such fun chatting that a senior moment made me forgot the exact quote. I do believe I'm relaying the gist of it though.   All I can say is flattery will get you everywhere!  My head, already known to be abnormally large, swelled like the Grinch’s heart and there was rubbing, flaking paint chips and wood splinters in my hair as I attempted to squeeze through the door after work.   

Those kinds words will pilot my entire week and the humidity and heat won’t be able to dampen my spirits.  I am titanium; nothing will bend or break me.  Right now I feel as if I could leap tall buildings and deflect bullets.  Compliments are better than paycheques and provide more comfort that money in the bank.   

It made my day and my evening.  We work very hard to offer quality and have an easily navigated website that shows all our products.  For those who can’t visit and touch the wares we provide excellent quality photos to have the “almost here” experience.   I write blogs to share my day and hooking knowledge and post on Facebook some of the wonderful people who visit the shop and share any rugs brought in so we can all bask in the glow.  I am constantly posting ideas and eye-candy to inspire and receiving feedback for my diligence is fabulous!   Thank-you Carole for making my day!  

And other news.....Heather Gordon was by for the daytime hook-in last week and I was telling her about my poster idea with the Initially Yours patterns and she one upped me with an even better idea.  She said I should make these alphabet rugs into a book.   I don’t know why I didn’t think of it myself but luckily Heather did!  In the book I will describe the process of each piece, offer beautiful colour plates of the design, the wool used and then the finished piece.  With dye formulas, story lines and maybe some of the lovely comments left by you on my blog posts or Facebook.   I’ve already started the writing and I’ll do each featured initial as I hook them so by the time I finish the series, the book will be ready to go to the printers.  Very exciting stuff!!!  I’ve always wanted to do a book on Nova Scotia Rug Hookers and this will dip my toes in the publishing waters.     

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A new shipment of hooks are in.  Some new and exciting colours!  To see close-up details of the individual hooks click this link:  http://www.encompassingdesigns.com/hooks.html
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Golly "G" I'm loving it!

7/14/2014

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I suppose there aren’t any rules on what to do with a day off, but wasting them seems like a crime.  I was pretty tired on Sunday, not from lack of sleep from the night before, no that seems to have repaired itself once again, but I’ve been drained from too many nights without sleep so it took its toll yesterday and I spent a lot of time horizontal catching up and catching flies. 

I planned to go to work because of the Treasures of Mahone Bay Festival but good intentions are sometimes undermined.  I did actually make it into the shop around 1:30 and sat here like a stringless marionette 
wondering if I should get up and work, sit and hook, or nap in the chair.  Three choices and not enough grey cells to choose, after they had melted into one big blob. No one came in for over a ½ hour which is typical of Sundays, festivals or otherwise.  Sundays are flea market crowds and after 14 years of business I know that Sunday is never worth opening for. And besides, I do need a day off every week; the precedent was set by a higher force than me. 

So I thought unenthusiastically, go back home and spend time with the pups.  I locked up.   Before heading for the air conditioned car, I got the crazy notion I should walk down to the Save Easy parking lot to visit Charlene at the Flea Market who sets up shop to sell jewelry and bling related items.  She has quite the operation, a lovely canopy tent for shade, although even the shade felt like being burned at the stake, and her hubby has made wonderful display cases to enhance the viewing.  She was packing up as they close down at 2:30 so I walked back to the shop with the pavement burning my feet through the two inch heels of my sandals.  A blistering day, fit only for cactus and mars.

So I make it home and fell into a chair.  I napped a bit, hooked a bit, napped a bit more and that was the revolution of my day.  We waited until 8:30 pm to play ball on the hill as I didn’t want the pups running in that kind of stinking heat, although they probably wouldn’t care so much with a pool to cool off in, but I wouldn’t be able to walk up the hill as the sweat would weigh me down and the pool is dog sized not me sized. 

So I hooked a bit more after dark and managed to get over half done but wasn’t impressed with the slow progress, I hoped to complete this one for today's blog.    I shouldn’t beat myself up because sometimes I place unrealistic goals and there doesn’t need to be a deadline.   Truthfully, I’m rather impressed with myself at the rate I’m progressing considering I’m really busy this time of year and I haven’t hooked much lately.  I seem to be back at it and it’s a good feeling! 

So this one is the letter G for hubby, Gregg.  Not exactly manly colours but I’m not designing them around any particular person or event.  I’m just playing around with colour.  These gorgeous tones are very tasty.  I love the way the background plaid enhances the Egyptian Red and Gneiss Brown accents.  This piece glows and is so darn happy I can’t help but smile every time I look at it.   I’ll miss this one but do look forward to the next exciting colour plan and letter….hmmmm so many to pick from still, which one to do next?


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PLAID #23
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To view the lineup of Initially Yours patterns that have been hooked so far, click the link:
http://www.encompassingdesigns.com/new-designs.html
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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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