I’m continuing to design more of the Nautical Stair Risers and competed two this weekend. This time there is a Kraken and Alphabet Signal Flags (and a partially finished Stylized Dolphin one that is still in the works for another day).
A Kraken is a mythical creature so I’m assuming I can hook it in any colour I choose and I choose red. Although there really is an East Pacific Red Octopus, I really like the name Kraken. I like to say it; it flows off my tongue just so. I’m really looking forward to hooking this one, shading it to bring it to life. Red is the theme throughout the rug collection to make it cohesive in my stairwell and hooking my Kraken red will really give him a masterful presence; he might even steal the show of the other 14 risers around him. We’ll see.
Of course I want to dive in and hook the new ones; the most exciting pattern in the stash is always the latest, but I have to discipline myself and finish the one on the go now, The Waves, and because they both share the same colours, I then have to hook its counterpart, The Wind. I hate reigning myself in when a pattern is so thrilling to begin, but I know I’ll end up with four rugs in various stages of completion and that’s just more hair falling out. That’s why I planned to design and hook one at a time for this project, but some eager beavers asked for more and I like to oblige so I'll keep pumping out the patterns.
The signal flags were tedious mathematical witches to draw. There are 26 blocks, 13 per line and of course measuring the space and dividing by how many blocks were needed, nothing worked out evenly so I had to add a bit here and there to fill in the space. Even at close scrutiny you can hardly tell which blocks are a bit wider and which are not, but that took some doing. Let’s just say a lot of eraser rubber was on the counter and the floor.
I was pretty elated when I figured out how to colour in the signal flags. In a black and white drawing it had little punch, but coloured in really shows the potential of how wonderful it will be when hooked. When using the Photoshop program, the main thing to watch for is that all the drawn lines are finished. Any gaps and the colour will bleed out into the surrounding area so I had to work at it several times to make each line embedded in another line. Then it was play time. I could have spent longer customizing the colours more like I will use to hook it, but what I see on the screen looks nothing like when it’s printed so there was really no point in trying to achieve accuracy. Of course I couldn’t shade the rope or achieve the effect of plaid on each border but like I said, it is the overall feeling I was capturing, not trying to make it look hooked. I was thinking it would be a great tool to help colour plan rugs.
So there are now 11 Nautical Riser Designs in the collection, with 9 more to do for a total of 20. I have that many in the Country Line, giving the customer plenty of choice to pick from, but not to worry, if you have more than 20 risers on your staircase, (boy that sure is a lot of climbing), I will gladly come up with a few more designs.
A Kraken is a mythical creature so I’m assuming I can hook it in any colour I choose and I choose red. Although there really is an East Pacific Red Octopus, I really like the name Kraken. I like to say it; it flows off my tongue just so. I’m really looking forward to hooking this one, shading it to bring it to life. Red is the theme throughout the rug collection to make it cohesive in my stairwell and hooking my Kraken red will really give him a masterful presence; he might even steal the show of the other 14 risers around him. We’ll see.
Of course I want to dive in and hook the new ones; the most exciting pattern in the stash is always the latest, but I have to discipline myself and finish the one on the go now, The Waves, and because they both share the same colours, I then have to hook its counterpart, The Wind. I hate reigning myself in when a pattern is so thrilling to begin, but I know I’ll end up with four rugs in various stages of completion and that’s just more hair falling out. That’s why I planned to design and hook one at a time for this project, but some eager beavers asked for more and I like to oblige so I'll keep pumping out the patterns.
The signal flags were tedious mathematical witches to draw. There are 26 blocks, 13 per line and of course measuring the space and dividing by how many blocks were needed, nothing worked out evenly so I had to add a bit here and there to fill in the space. Even at close scrutiny you can hardly tell which blocks are a bit wider and which are not, but that took some doing. Let’s just say a lot of eraser rubber was on the counter and the floor.
I was pretty elated when I figured out how to colour in the signal flags. In a black and white drawing it had little punch, but coloured in really shows the potential of how wonderful it will be when hooked. When using the Photoshop program, the main thing to watch for is that all the drawn lines are finished. Any gaps and the colour will bleed out into the surrounding area so I had to work at it several times to make each line embedded in another line. Then it was play time. I could have spent longer customizing the colours more like I will use to hook it, but what I see on the screen looks nothing like when it’s printed so there was really no point in trying to achieve accuracy. Of course I couldn’t shade the rope or achieve the effect of plaid on each border but like I said, it is the overall feeling I was capturing, not trying to make it look hooked. I was thinking it would be a great tool to help colour plan rugs.
So there are now 11 Nautical Riser Designs in the collection, with 9 more to do for a total of 20. I have that many in the Country Line, giving the customer plenty of choice to pick from, but not to worry, if you have more than 20 risers on your staircase, (boy that sure is a lot of climbing), I will gladly come up with a few more designs.
It's amazing what a little colour can do!
RSS Feed
