Not all designs are winners but it’s always a bonus when one sports a bit more personality. Between my efforts at the design table and Jean Wentzell’s interpretation with her hooking, I think we both deserve a good slap on the back for “Winter Games”. It might be bragging to blow your own horn but who wants someone else’s lips all over it during flu and cold season? I once read it isn’t bragging if it’s as good as you say it is and in this case, especially after it went viral on Facebook, I don’t think I’m far off the mark.
As I was drawing this darling jewel, I was thinking about the colour plan and what I would do if it were on my list to hook. I do that when I design, filling in the lines with colour. This one was a custom order for Jean Wentzell, who has hooked a lot of my designs, some custom, and always does them justice. We are currently working on a series of four designs so she has a rug to hang for every season. This one depicts winter and although Christmas is slap dab in the middle she didn’t want it to only serve the holidays but represent all of winter and withstand the three month duration it would hang. In Nova Scotia, white winters are commonplace so snow had to be on the menu and the perfect jumping off point.
A few years ago I saw a card with a cat skating on a pond and that stuck in my crop so when I was mulling over Jeans request, it popped up and I mentally switched out the cat for a snowman and the pattern began to take shape. The skating snowman is definitely the focal and I wanted to have the design trail off in the distance. I placed a row of houses against a winter sky. I envisioned them as funky jelly bean shacks and Grinchlike groovy trees in-between.
The hill behind the pond was almost a third of the drawing so it needed to be broken up with interesting bits so I added more snowmen fooling around with various winter sports like skiing, snowshoeing and a toboggan and that’s when the name spoke to me, Winter Games. I added clothing, scarves and hats to help break up the use of white on white. Jean did a great job hooking these tiny guys probably in a #3 and #4 cut. She also placed shadows in the snow strategically so the snowman bodies stood out. One snowman has taken a tumble, his skis are stuck in the snow and his hat went flying. There were now five snowmen which provides a nice balance to the overall design. I don’t much care for symmetry so they are not all clumped together.
The trees between the buildings had to be funky. I told Jean from the get go, go wild or go home. Bring in the bright, make then dance on the skyline. The trees were hip in design so they needed to be matched with jazzy colour. I said I envisioned red and green stripes and she followed my suggestion to perfection, even sculpting them for added character. Unfortunately that effect doesn’t show well in the photo but on the actual rug it provides even more spark! We talked about making the little row of houses wild with colour, oranges, pinks turquoises, pumping up the jam and looking like they are straight out of a Whoville storybook. The houses dance along the skyline and steal the show of the top third of the rug.
At the shop, Shane dyes wool called Snow & Ice, appropriately named, and Jean used 3 value and six 6 value swatches for the snow and ice. With that much snow to deal with the values had to be manipulated to show shadows and valleys or it would have become a large blob. The snow and ice 6 value bundles go from darkest to lightest with a smooth transition to Dorr Natural as the 7th value, which would be called on more to cover the area. I think Jean did a great job in creating the shadows along the hillside and under the snowmen. Even though this is a whimsical design the snow is rather authentic looking and quite believable.
Jean’s vision of the pond ice was a neat surprise. Similar to a chevron pattern it looks exactly like ponds from my childhood where the wind swept the snow into a pattern on the ice. It is a perfect contrast visually to all the vertical snow on the hill. Once again the icy blue from the darker values of the Snow & Ice bundles continued the uniformity of the rug so that it is totally balanced throughout. The sky denotes a grey winter’s day, a bit lighter than the darker ice as frozen water should be treated the same as an open body of water, a reflection of the sky tone only a couple of shades darker.
During the hooking of this magical rug, Jean would drop by on Saturday’s for updates and each visit brought more excitement. I couldn’t be more pleased with her efforts and the execution of her colour plan is masterful. Jean my dear, you can hook my patterns anytime!
An idea for her Spring design is already in my head, all I need is the pencil in my hand and a couple of hours to transfer my thoughts to the blank paper. Stay tuned!
To view this pattern on our Seasonal Designs page click this link: http://www.encompassingdesigns.com/seasonal-designs.html
As I was drawing this darling jewel, I was thinking about the colour plan and what I would do if it were on my list to hook. I do that when I design, filling in the lines with colour. This one was a custom order for Jean Wentzell, who has hooked a lot of my designs, some custom, and always does them justice. We are currently working on a series of four designs so she has a rug to hang for every season. This one depicts winter and although Christmas is slap dab in the middle she didn’t want it to only serve the holidays but represent all of winter and withstand the three month duration it would hang. In Nova Scotia, white winters are commonplace so snow had to be on the menu and the perfect jumping off point.
A few years ago I saw a card with a cat skating on a pond and that stuck in my crop so when I was mulling over Jeans request, it popped up and I mentally switched out the cat for a snowman and the pattern began to take shape. The skating snowman is definitely the focal and I wanted to have the design trail off in the distance. I placed a row of houses against a winter sky. I envisioned them as funky jelly bean shacks and Grinchlike groovy trees in-between.
The hill behind the pond was almost a third of the drawing so it needed to be broken up with interesting bits so I added more snowmen fooling around with various winter sports like skiing, snowshoeing and a toboggan and that’s when the name spoke to me, Winter Games. I added clothing, scarves and hats to help break up the use of white on white. Jean did a great job hooking these tiny guys probably in a #3 and #4 cut. She also placed shadows in the snow strategically so the snowman bodies stood out. One snowman has taken a tumble, his skis are stuck in the snow and his hat went flying. There were now five snowmen which provides a nice balance to the overall design. I don’t much care for symmetry so they are not all clumped together.
The trees between the buildings had to be funky. I told Jean from the get go, go wild or go home. Bring in the bright, make then dance on the skyline. The trees were hip in design so they needed to be matched with jazzy colour. I said I envisioned red and green stripes and she followed my suggestion to perfection, even sculpting them for added character. Unfortunately that effect doesn’t show well in the photo but on the actual rug it provides even more spark! We talked about making the little row of houses wild with colour, oranges, pinks turquoises, pumping up the jam and looking like they are straight out of a Whoville storybook. The houses dance along the skyline and steal the show of the top third of the rug.
At the shop, Shane dyes wool called Snow & Ice, appropriately named, and Jean used 3 value and six 6 value swatches for the snow and ice. With that much snow to deal with the values had to be manipulated to show shadows and valleys or it would have become a large blob. The snow and ice 6 value bundles go from darkest to lightest with a smooth transition to Dorr Natural as the 7th value, which would be called on more to cover the area. I think Jean did a great job in creating the shadows along the hillside and under the snowmen. Even though this is a whimsical design the snow is rather authentic looking and quite believable.
Jean’s vision of the pond ice was a neat surprise. Similar to a chevron pattern it looks exactly like ponds from my childhood where the wind swept the snow into a pattern on the ice. It is a perfect contrast visually to all the vertical snow on the hill. Once again the icy blue from the darker values of the Snow & Ice bundles continued the uniformity of the rug so that it is totally balanced throughout. The sky denotes a grey winter’s day, a bit lighter than the darker ice as frozen water should be treated the same as an open body of water, a reflection of the sky tone only a couple of shades darker.
During the hooking of this magical rug, Jean would drop by on Saturday’s for updates and each visit brought more excitement. I couldn’t be more pleased with her efforts and the execution of her colour plan is masterful. Jean my dear, you can hook my patterns anytime!
An idea for her Spring design is already in my head, all I need is the pencil in my hand and a couple of hours to transfer my thoughts to the blank paper. Stay tuned!
To view this pattern on our Seasonal Designs page click this link: http://www.encompassingdesigns.com/seasonal-designs.html
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