Category:

Cone Coven

6/29/2016

Our resident artist, Deborah Sweet has completed another one of the Cone Coven Trio that she previously designed. The little witch in training is adorable with her pumpkin and broom. Hooked using the same colour palette as the Cone Crone, they are a delightful arrangement for Halloween adornments in the shop and would be equally fun for your home.

Deborah is a valuable asset to our team and her artistic skills are thrilling us. She is extremely personable and melds in beautifully with the shop. We are a current and dynamic trio for your rug hooking needs.

Fright and delight this coming Halloween! These adorable witches, with their expressive faces, are packed with personality. Kits are now available for the Cone Crone and the Little Witch in training is not far behind or you can do your own colour planning to bring all three to life with the pattern Cone Coven.

Stay tuned for the magnificent wizard, the third installment of the trio.

View Deb's other designs by clicking this link: http://www.encompassingdesigns.com/deborah-sweet.html

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RUGLORIOUS!

4/6/2016

3 Comments

During the life of a shop owner, the biggest perk is experiencing the sweet eye-candy of a customer’s creative mind. You take our patterns and add your personal touch, bringing each design to life in glorious ways. A rug is a merger of the design, inspiration and wool plus the gifted hand to bring it all to fruition. I want to thank all the fabulous rug hookers that make our patterns shine; you certainly make us look good.

I am especially touched to see one of our designs hooked, and I’ve misted up plenty over the years. My mascara runs and the sentimental part of me becomes all gooey inside as I choke back the swell of awe rising in my throat.

Thank goodness we have unique visions. The eclectic pool of talent we swim around in keeps life exciting and visually appealing. From the simplest plan to elaborate explosions of colour, all rugs are amazing and their makers need to be applauded.

Saturday was a spectacular eye-candy day. I was misting and moaning while several rugs paraded before me. I try to express my excitement, offering much deserved praise, but there are not enough words in the English language to sum up the emotion that these rugs evoke. Then I got to thinking, there isn’t a word that gives justice to some of the masterpieces I’ve seen. No singular word packs enough punch to tell it like it is without embellishing with piles of adjectives.    Beautiful just doesn’t cut it and it’s so overused it no longer conveys enough heartfelt sincerity. We need stronger verbalization, a word that climbs the highest mountain, reaches the mysterious ocean depth, a powerful word that encompassing our emotions when seeing a rug that is beyond awesome.

Saturday, I was in the car heading home after a wonderful day of hooking and bearing witness to the skills of women in this glorious fellowship when a word popped into my head.   RUGLORIOUS. A combination of rug and glorious; a word that means magnificent, wonderful, splendid, celebrated, superb, famous and outstanding. So from now on when a spectacular rug enters my door or is shown on Facebook and it surpasses my wildest imagination for design and boasts rich saturation of colour or intricate fine shading, I will declare that it’s Ruglorious! A word that sums up its masterful splendor. Let Webster’s pick it up and place it with other synonyms of praise and grandeur.   Let us share this word to describe the amazing rugs our friends and fellow rug hookers create. Let’s pass it around and save it for the rugs that touch our souls and move us to tears. RUGLORIOUS!

Below, Chris Hay's poppies. She has only been hooking for two years and all I can say is too bad for us! Can you imagine what she would have created if she’d been at this craft for a decade? I can hardly wait to see what comes off her frame next. She ordered our “Shirley” pattern.....I‘m wowed even before she pulls a loop!

Andre came in to show me her progress on our “Blueberry Jacobean” pattern (above) and be still my heart. Any designer’s patterns can take my breath away but the thrill and excitement of seeing one of my own, especially with this kind of brilliance, spins me over the top.

Andre’s colours have given this design life. She transformed black marker lines with brilliant strips of wool, taking it from drab to fab. Ruglorious! I look forward to seeing other versions of this pattern with different colour plans; each one is always special and truly a wonderful surprise. It inspires me to create more beautiful patterns so all you talented rug hookers can make me cry.

Chris Hay's poppies. Big, bold and beautiful! Perfectly shaded! Ruglorious! Below is The Wooly Mat-ters. Such a rich colour palette.

3 Comments

Finishing touches....

3/31/2016

1 Comment

It sure is a fabulous spring day! We’ve had the shop door open letting in the promise of even better days ahead. I sat in the Hook Nook watching folks walk by, one gal paraded by in a tank top! That might be a stretch for only plus 13, but we all like to push the envelope when it comes to weather, always wanting something more and rushing toward it. It’ll be awhile before I dig out sandals although I see them walking by, the wind is still too biting on my tender tootsies.

I sat with my lovely Hook Nook pillow supporting my back. I stayed last evening to sew some of the jobs gathering dust. In a fantasy world I’d have a lackey, I mean an assistant, someone to follow me and finish the projects once the hooking is done. Despite what you may thing, I really don’t mind finishing; I just never seem to have the time for it. My mind is always on the next item on the list, moving forward before I should, like having a bath after I’m dressed. At some point I always get around to getting the job done but it can take weeks or even years.

I was pumped last evening, one of those high energy days that come once and a while so I decided it was now or never and stayed to sew my LOVE, Shamrock and Hook Nook pillows. I really don’t know why I put these tasks off, once completed they really didn’t seem that time consuming. It was about twenty minutes a pillow to pin the back to the front, stitch around on the machine, cut the corners, turn it inside out and then stuff with the pillow form. A bit of hand stitching to seal up the opening and voila, something useful and pretty and a chest rising moment for the satisfaction of a job done.

The backing for the LOVE pillow was Antique Red, the same wool used for the border and the Shamrock pillow had the same green as in the border and background. The Hook Nook was finished with the same multi-stripe teal and red herringbone used for the background for a custom look. I even managed to keep the vertical stripes straight, not so easy when you haven't prebasted it first. I took the shortcut using pins to hold back and front together. I was proud and a bit shocked at the lack of swearing throughout the task. I did make the slits a bit too small to push the pillow forms through and broke out in a sweat trying to ram it in. It was like putting a watermelon through a button hole. I was worried I'd tear the backing wool but I persevered while four pups starred at me wondering what all the grunting was about.

I didn’t sew up my little Easter one yet. I’ll do that Saturday. Perhaps a few folks will come and sit with me, tip the elbow with our delicious coffee and nibble on homemade cookies. I’m a bit lonely. Hubby is away assisting his mother’s transition into assisted living. She is 97 and going strong but after carpel surgery and having two falls from being off kilter with not being able to use her hand, she decided it was time to be surrounded with people instead of being alone where she fell and couldn’t get up for an hour. Pretty scary stuff! She’s moving to a lovely, sizable apartment and can take a lot of her own things. They play Bridge there so she’ll fit in like a well-worn pair of slippers. She won’t have to worry now, and neither will we.

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Blog #4 - Funny story

10/13/2012

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I have a funny story associated with the “Queen of The Sea” pattern.

Anyway, I’m in my studio and I’ve just finished the design when a middle aged man comes in to browse the shop. He saunters over to my workspace and looks down at the drawing. I kid you not…his forehead broke out in tiny dots of perspiration. He kept staring at the mermaid’s over-endowed chest for an uncomfortable amount of time, mouth agape. The appeal was lost on me, first of all it was a drawing of black lines on white paper and the breasts were very discreetly covered with starfish.

So I did the only thing I could do and asked him “Do you think they’re big enough?”

I tell no lie…he replied with labored breath, “Ohhhhh yes”. It came out soft and slow, almost a whisper.

And then I just couldn’t resist and asked, “What do you think of the octopus?” Referring to the big, two foot long octopus directly below the mermaid. His reply? “What octopus?”

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Blog #1 - Loosing My Blog Virginity!

10/10/2012

2 Comments

Welcome all to my blog! This is a new concept for me but it's proof positive you can teach old dogs new tricks!   Those of you who know me already, know I love to talk and I think I have a lot to say after twelve years in business, thirteen years a hooker. I can't wait to share tips and funny antidotes that have happened along this magical journey since opening my shop door. Call it a passion or an obsession, we all know what I mean.

So many things have happened, so many changes and all for the good. We have a lovely new studio as of 2007 when my husband and I renovated the building we are in now. The first floor, retail area, is 1000 sq. ft. crammed full of hooking treasures, stocked with top quality rug hooking merchandise from floor to ceiling. Upstairs I teach and host workshops and our group, The Main Street Hookers, meet for fellowship and inspiration every 1st and 3rd Wednesday of the month.

So lets get started on the blogging....... I would like to share a story prompted by a recent email from a customer who sent us a picture of a hooked stool top. Lunenburg Tea Cosy is one of our designs which a customer adapted into a stool cover by squaring off the top of the pattern. Instead of the traditional red buildings of Lunenburg she vamped the design by selecting various colours, bringing a whole new feel to the pattern. Suddenly it represented any fishing village along the eastern seaboard, a quaint harbour in Newfoundland, a small inlet of Nova Scotia, a coastal scene from Maine.

Hooking is like baking, give the same recipe to 10 people and every dish will have a different flavour. Thank goodness as this makes us all unique! The same is true with rug hooking. The same pattern given to 10 hookers will tell a different story. Over the years, I have noticed that some people find it difficult to recognize an unhooked pattern on the rack from the finished rug on the wall. Colour is a huge influence, pulling from our memory banks past experiences. We react the same way to visual stimuli as we would respond to a pleasant scent through smell. Red may represent the dress that a favorite aunt used to wear, yellow can be the blond girl that stared back at you in the mirror. Rose, the dominant colour of the floral wallpaper at grandma's house. Green, a blanket you suckled as a small child. Memory and past experiences influence all aspects of our lives.

Colour is so personal. We wear it ever day. We choose our clothes, gravitating toward  certain colours time and time again. Through experience, I believe that people buy rugs because of the colour first and the composition second. Probably the same is true for paintings. I ask rug purchasers what attracted them to the piece and "the colours" is the usual answer. We anal types like our art to fit our homes, not clash and stand like a sore thumb. We paint our walls and decorate our interiors first and then everything else skips down the same path.

An interesting observation I'd like to share. When customers come in the shop for colour planning a new project, they may not be sure where to begin, so we work together until we whittle it down to what pleases their eye. Time and time again I have to laugh, and let them know that they have chosen the same colours that they are wearing that day. They look down at their clothing and smile as the realization hits them. I boost customer confidence by telling them they colour plan every day. They dress themselves in coordinating outfits. Look at your rug as if you are dressing your body, it may help remove the apprehension out of the task.

I am told by a lot of rug hookers that colour planning is daunting.  But remember, your aren't out on a limb....believe it or not your palette is partially chosen for you. Most of the rugs we hook are for our homes so if this next project is slated for the living room, draw on the colours in the curtains, the sofa, the throw cushions and carpet. There is no need to stress, your colour palette is being handed to you on a silver platter, reach out and grab it! Look at your surroundings and invite those colours in. Your home, the proverbial nest, is a representation of your favorite colours so run with it.

Tip: If you need help to dye the wool, gather paint chips and samples of your upholstery to take to your closest rug studio and use them as a guideline to plan your next heirloom, or dive into the dye pot and create those colours yourself.   Don't try to be too matchy matchy, colours blend beautifully if tonally close.

There, I've lost my blog virginity, and I would like to say that it was very pleasurable!   Hopefully you haven't fallen asleep, I'll try to keep the words to a minimum in future...this being my first time I got carried away!

Lunenburg Cosy squared off and hooked with lively colours.
Great job Dody Conner!

The pattern Dody modified. Lunenburg Cosy hooked with colours that represent its harbourfront.

2 Comments

Cone Coven

RUGLORIOUS!

Finishing touches....

Blog #4 - Funny story

Blog #1 - Loosing My Blog Virginity!

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Categories
(Click on the categories for past blogs)

Cone Coven

RUGLORIOUS!

Finishing touches....

Blog #4 - Funny story

Blog #1 - Loosing My Blog Virginity!

Archives

Categories(Click on the categories for past blogs)

Categories
(Click on the categories for past blogs)