Encompassing Designs
  • Home
  • Shop
    • Kits
    • Patterns >
      • Christine Little >
        • Signature Designs
        • New Designs
        • Seasonal Designs
      • Deborah Sweet
      • Susan Leslie
      • Patricia Perry
      • William Morris
    • Supplies >
      • Backings
      • Frames
      • Hooks
      • Books
      • Extra
    • Wool >
      • Abrashed
      • Custom Dyeing
      • Dyed Bundles
      • Dyed Curly Mohair
      • Dyed Spots
      • Dyed Values
      • Dyed Yarn
      • Jacquard Dice Dyes
      • Natural & Colours
      • Plaids & Textures
      • Dye Books & Swatches
  • Ordering
  • Blog
  • Workshops
  • Our Story
  • Contact Us

Memories from the past revamped and anew

3/13/2020

5 Comments

 
Picture
Even as a child I loved neat things; interesting antiques and items crafted with character and charm.   If I saw something and became smitten, I’d hang on to it knowing someday, it would become useful in ways that weren’t clear at the time.   When I was ten and my family moved to the house on Cherry Lane, it was a trip back to the past with none of the modern conveniences of the sixties and seventies.  My naivety was greatly affected by how people from the dark ages lived, no inside toilet?  The house was definitely a fixer upper to bring it up to the current standards and dad picked away at the priorities to make it a cosy home.
  
Because the house had stayed untouched with plaster, lath and wood plank exterior walls, that was all that separated us from the cold outside making warmth and comfort the top of the list with winter coming.  Dad had Burgoyne’s Heating install an oil furnace that would warm every room, ceiling ducts in the upstairs and floor registers on the main level.  Up until then the only heat source the house had ever known was a small wood stove in the kitchen that surely had the previous occupants clad in thick sweaters and long johns in the other areas of the house.  There was evidence that sheets had been hung in the doorways that led to the hall and back porch to keep the heat in the kitchen where they probably hung out during the day.   Until the furnace came, only the kitchen offered comfort and we huddled there dreading going upstairs to our icy beds.   
 
Although the little wood stove was small it churned out a lot of heat.  It was so adorable with its ornate casting and craftsmanship that we no longer see today.  Everywhere you looked there was a decorative swirl or detail on its curvaceous girth. There was an amazing ornate skirt that probably had a chrome plating and a domed finial top, now void of chrome and painted gold.   The mica was still intact which was surprising from its age.   I used to stare at the small silvery windows, mesmerized by the flickering flames that danced behind them.

Dad was going to chuck the old stove to the road side after the furnace was up and running but I begged him to let me have it.  I don’t know why he indulged me, it was heavy and had to be lugged to the basement where it would only sit and rust in the dampness.  I must have presented a pretty good argument because we stored it until I got older, moved out and took it with me.  I dragged it around for years, in and out of a first marriage, various apartments and finally to my current abode with hubby number two.  I never knew why, I just wanted it because it was unique, old and full of character.  
 
So, when we renovated the building that my shop is in now, I bought an old mantel surround, painted it red and put the stove there, fashioning a fake pipe out of an aluminum vent and painted it flat black to match the stove so it looked like it was hooked up to a chimney outside.  It was a sweet element of the past for the studio, fitting in nicely with the antiques I gathered for displays and the gorgeous antique staircase railing and newel post that we installed that had been harvested from an old house. 

I could have sold that stove many times over the years as people noticed it and wanted the history.  It was built in Sackville, New Brunswick at a place called Chas. Fawcett and some folks were very familiar with the foundry that made it.  They all agreed it was a good call not to discard it.  

One of the interesting features of the stove is a decorate crown that pivots to the side to expose a two-burner top for double duty as a cooker.  Considering the lack of an electric range that had clearly never been installed in the kitchen I would imagine many a meal was heated on top of the old faithful wood stove.  It had seen its day and wouldn't be wet certified now but with a bit of welding to replace the back plate and some new fire bricks it could be used, maybe outdoors with a stove pipe through a sheltering roof. 

The other item in that house that piqued my curiosity was a large oil cloth that covered the bare floor boards in the back-storage room.  Every time I went in there to fetch a canned good for mom or steal a cookie out of the tin, I marveled at the colours and the Jacobean flowers printed on the cloth.  The softness and blend of earth tones really filled my budding artist soul.  After my parents both passed away and the house was cleared out to be sold, I took a number of photos and gathered up several large pieces as it was cracked and falling apart, thinking perhaps, well I really don’t know what I was thinking, it was long before my hooking days, I just knew that I wanted to preserve it somehow.  Perhaps I would paint the image on a floor in a future home.   Over the years as I lugged it from pillar to post the pieces began to crumble so I threw them out.  As long as I had the photos it would serve whatever purpose I would undertake.

So, when I opened the shop, I thought of that old oil cloth and I dug out the pictures and saw immediately what a handsome rug pattern it would make.  Well over 100 years old, I wasn’t worried about copyright and I manipulated the pattern motifs to create an enclosed area so the outer area around them could potentially have a different colour to the interior field.  Someone loved the pattern but wished it had a border, making it more traditional.  No problem, I added a border using the elements in the center design and named it after the woman that requested it. The first version with just the center and an edge around it, was called Beatrice after my Springhill nana.   I’d previously named a rug after my mom so her mother’s name was perfect. Beatrice is an old-fashioned moniker that suited perfectly the antique impression that the pattern relays, but now I think it should be renamed Cherry Lane and use Beatrice for another design.     

Yesterday when I opened my email, low and behold there was a photo of Ruth Anne beautifully hooked and it just about blew me away.  Excitement coursed through my body as memories flooded me of the old house on Cherry Lane where I spent most of my childhood.   Thank-you Marten Doornekamp for sharing it with me.  What a fantastic heirloom you've created. I love it! 

The palette Marten chose was similar in feel and has that earthiness like the original cloth but different at the same time.  The thing I love best about owning a shop is seeing how rug hookers interpret my designs and bring them to life with exquisite colour, often eliciting tears from this sentimental old fool.   

Picture
Ruth Anne hooked beautifully by Marten Doornekamp
​48" x 80"

5 Comments
Mary Jane
3/14/2020 06:27:58 am

I love both the pattern and the colors! Lovely!

Reply
Joyce
3/14/2020 06:28:23 am

That is amazing!

Reply
Adena
3/14/2020 06:28:39 am

This is stunning!

Reply
Crystal
3/14/2020 06:28:58 am

Beautiful!!!

Reply
Devin link
3/14/2020 07:01:46 am

Wow, stunning, and I really loved reading the post you wrote to accompany it. That stove: beautiful all on its own!

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Christine Little has been ranked #5​ out of the 60 top rug hooking bloggers by Rug Hooking Magazine!

    Picture
    Picture
    Max Anderson, Australia, recipient of my Nova Scotia Treasures rug.  An award of excellence for promoting Canada through his writing.  
    Picture
    Picture

    RSS Feed

    Archives

    February 2023
    January 2023
    July 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    November 2021
    October 2021
    July 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012

    Picture
    Picture
    Gift Certificates are available for that special rug hooker in your life!  Any denomination, no expiry date! 

    Picture

    Categories
    (Click on the categories for past blogs)

    All
    Announcements
    Beginner Class
    Christmas
    Colour Planning
    Contests
    Copyright
    Coupon
    Customer Rugs
    Cutter Servicing
    Dyeing
    Equipment
    Featured Hooker
    Giveaway Draw
    Guest Blogger
    Guest Blogger
    Health & Fitness
    Home & Heart
    Hooked Rugs
    Hooking Groups
    Hook In Talk
    Initially Yours
    Jibber Jabber
    Just A Bit Of Fun!
    Life's Experiences
    Life's Experiences
    New Design
    New Ideas
    Pattern Of The Week
    Patterns Hooked
    Pets
    Rants
    Recipes
    Rememberingfbe7326ff7
    Rug Schools
    Show & Tell
    Show-tell
    The Rant
    Tips Technique
    Tips Techniquef0cd117ab4
    Visitors
    Workshops

    Picture
    Picture
    Picture





















    Picture
    We have a pot to "Fiz" in!

Shop Hours:
Monday - Friday 10:00 AM - 5:00 PM 
Saturdays 12:00 PM - 4:00 PM
We are closed during ice and snow storms
​so please call ahead.  If school is cancelled we probably are as well.  

Toll Free: 1-855-624-0370
Local: 1-902-624-0370​
encompassingdesigns@gmail.com

498 Main Street
P.O. Box 437
Mahone Bay, N.S.
Canada B0J 2E0

​Follow us and keep up to date
on our specials, new products
​and events!
Picture
Picture
Picture


Home
Shop
Ordering
Blog
Our Story
Workshops

Contact Us




​​​© Copyright 2023 Encompassing Designs. Website by SKYSAIL