If you follow my web newsletter, you know that I have inherited my mother’s home where I grew up. I have spent the last 6 months trying to re-decorate the house and get moved in. Lots of obstacles have jumped in front of me, but I am getting there slowly. The house is much smaller than my present house, so I am picking and choosing from among my possessions – that’s the easy part. What to do with everything that doesn’t fit is the hard part.

Rug hooking has been an absent element of my life these past few months. I hook my designs for Create and Decorate and that has been about it. I really miss my “pleasure hooking!”  When I finally get settled, I am going to put the biggest rug I’ve ever hooked on my frame and just go to town — I sorely need a hooking fix!

Meantime, I can’t wait for sprint to fully arrive here on the northcoast of Ohio . . . we’ve had record snow and cold this year. You really cannot get muich moving done when you have 3 inches of ice in your driveways! So warm weather will definitely be a welcome thing. Of course, having 2 yards to maintain for a while is not going to be fun either.

So, that’s where my life has been and why you have not heard from me lately – it’s always something with me! Here is a pic of my new living room . . .

Now I have to get out from under this house in Amherst. Anyone want to buy a 2-story colonial in a sleepy little town with great schools? Just 30 minutes from downtown Cleveland and easily accessible to everywhere by highway and turnpike interchanges only 3 minuts or less away. Close to park and public pool, too. Great buy — in a  beautiful old neighborhood.

I really, really intended to be better at this blogging on a regular basis than I have been in the last few months. Summer just took over my life with all sorts of issues, mostly personal family things that sucked any spare time right out of my life. As things settle (a bit), I am here to say I am so sorry to my readers who have asked questions and continued to read this blog – even reading past posts and responding to them. I am so grateful for each of you – showing an interest in my work and my blog. So now, I will allow life to move me forward (like I could stop it if I wanted to – LOL) and just roll with it.

Right now, I am working on a Hook-a-Month project. I offered this pattern and project to my web newsletter subscribers about a month ago, and many of them signed up. Now it is open for anyone else who wishes to sign up. Basically it consists of a gorgeous antique adaptation of a hooked rug from the 1800s. I am offering the pattern and wool project over a period of time – much like the quilters’ block of the month clubs do. If you want to know more about it, visit my web site here for all the information. If you decide to sign up, do it quickly because I only have a few of these left. I can’t wait to start working on this one myself. I want to work on mine along with the rug hookers who sign up and work on this a month at a time so we can share our experience and compare our rugs as they progress.

I absolutely love, love, love this rug! The design is great, and I especially love the faded old colors. I hope to be able to replicate them fairly close for the kits. It will be so much fun to see how everyone’s rugs differ and how they are the same. I have some hookers who ordered their kits with the wool already cut, but I am hoping that some of the others who ordered kits with uncut wool will be using different strip widths so we can see how the rug looks coming off the hooks of each one of them, as well.

I have work waiting for me, so my dear readers, thank you again for being here (if you are . . .) and I again promise to try to do better at posting more frequently now that things are simmering down a little. Until next time . . .  Happy Hooking!

Good Sunny Morning!

It’s warm, sunny and beautiful here on the North Coast today – Finally! Sure makes one feel so much better to see and feel the  sun. The colors are so much brighter and so is my disposition. I think I live in the wrong area of the country. Winters here drag on and rarely do we see the sun during those months. It has really affected my creativity this winter. But, now I can get out in the sun, tend the yard and gardens, and wait for the flowers to bloom. I planted crocuses scattered in my front lawn years ago, and yesterday they opened their pretty little purple, yellow and white heads as if to speak to me saying, “it’s here – Spring is really here!” I sure hope it stays here, but in northern Ohio, one never knows – I’ve seen errant snow as late as May here (shudder!)

Well, yard work is beckoning me, and you know what? It isn’t even going to feel like work! Until tomorrow when this old body tells me that I can’t work that long any more. Oh well, that’s what aspercreme is for, right? Until next time – enjoy the sun – I hope it’s shining in your neck of the woods.

Sally

Well for the past couple of weeks I have been diligently trying to rebuild my entire website, which is a huge undertaking! I desperately needed to clean up my code, which has gotten extremely bloated over the years. So each and every page is being fixed. I had a couple of mishaps and while publishing pages to the Internet to check the changes, caused my header to be the only thing that is displaying on those pages – not a good thing! So, I cannot publish the changes until the entire site is done. I am about 3/4 of the way there, but my largest pages with products are still waiting and really time consuming to re-create. So, that’s why you haven’t heard from me of late. I appreciate you still coming to check on me! Life sure can get in the way.

I haven’t done much hooking (or anything else for that matter) these last couple of weeks, and I am missing it sooo much. I have to get busy and get two design projects ready for Create and Decorate, so at least I have an excuse to hook something new! This is the project for the Holiday issue, so it won’t be easy to get myself in the mood to hook winter stuff just as the weather is finally warming up. Such is the way of the magazine world – always looking 6 months ahead! Just got the Spring issue and I am so happy with the way they displayed my Lepus Rabbit door crown. That was the one I told you I am keeping when it comes back to me. I can see it over my door already!

So, I am here trying hard to get my site ready for it’s big re-opening. It will look almost the same, but with new and better navigation, some new pages, pdf files you can download with information about how to do things, online e-newsletter, etc. Stay tuned and stay with me . . . thanks for the comments, girls. I apprecaite you visting here!

Sally

Spent my day catching up on things I’ve spent far too long putting off. I don’t know why I do that, I never used to. I guess I feel at my age that I’ve earned the right to pick and choose what I want to do, and I never want to do the things I don’t like to do (cook, clean, grocery shop, pay bills, you get the idea.) And no, I didn’t do any of those things today either. I did reorganize the way I send my e-newsletter and got my entire subscriber list into Outlook. Yes, that was a pain, but very necessary. Check – done. Then my all-in-one printer took a flying leap and I had to troubleshoot the problem and fix that – after re-installing all of that software and cleaning a bunch of ink out of the bottom of the printer (don’t ask!) and then off my hands, it seems to be working okay (fingers crossed.) Check – done.

Several very nice people ordered rug kits and punch needle patterns, as well as supplies, so I filled orders and got them ready to ship. That was pleasant – now I can pay my mortgage payment tomorrow, which is always a good thing. Check – done.

And smack in the middle of the day, I sat down and watched my Cleveland Indians win their home opener against the White Sox. Aside from Jim Thome, most of the Sox didn’t show up today. The Tribe was awesome, as usual — I just LOVE baseball!!

So now you know what I did all day. Tomorrow I will spend time with my youngest granddaughter, Carley, who is 4. Which is a good thing, because I am missing my youngest daughter, Maggie, who left to go back to Ohio U. yesterday. For years I wondered what I was thinking when I spaced my kids out so far – there are 13 years between my oldest daughter, Amy 32, and Maggie 18 (with my son, Seth 21, in between.) But now it all becomes clear – just when I miss Maggie the most (empty nest) I can bring the grand kids over to fill up the nest again. And the beautiful thing is, when I am tired or bored or they are bad, I just call Amy and say ‘come get these kids!’ Ha! So, I think I am pretty smart now. What? You want to see the kids? Well, I thought you’d never ask . . .

The Grand kids

My Kids: Maggie 18, Seth 21, Amy 32

(don’t know why Seth likes that hat! I think it’s dumb . . . but what do I know?)

Well, I think I am ready for sleep. It’s been a good day.

It’s been a couple of weeks since I’ve had time to sit down and write anything here. Between computer crashes and my son’s car accident, I have lost track of what I am doing, totally! So now that things have settled down a bit (she said with her fingers crossed), I can post more often.

I hope you all had a wonderful Easter – can we look forward to some warmer weather now, do you think? Here on the north coast of Ohio, we get rain, then snow, then thaw, then it starts all over again. It has been the snowiest March we’ve had in a long time, and I for one, am SICK of snow!! We had a snow of about 2 inches on Easter evening. Remember when you were a kid and you’d get a new spring outfit for Easter? Dress, gloves, little hat, and maybe a light-weight coat? My poor granddaughters were bundled up like snowmen for Easter! What happened to our weather? Oh, never mind, I know – global warming. We won’t go there . . . I’d rather talk about rug hooking.

I started a clamshell rug a couple of weeks ago, but I am only about half done. I usually finish a rug the same week I start it, but with all my distractions lately, I just have not spent the time on it. Plus, I did have to fit in two projects for Create and Decorate this month as well. Those got mailed off today, so I just might sit and hook this evening. I need it!!

My youngest daughter is home on spring break from Ohio U., but she is going back tomorrow (boo-hoo); so I will probably do laundry tonight – hooking works well on laundry night for me. About the time I need to take a break from hooking, I can go to the laundry room and flip a load into the dryer, start a new load in the washer, and go back to hooking again. Plus, that’s about the only time I get to watch any television. Speaking of which, I think I just missed my Cavs game – darn! Our Indians opening day is Monday, and for that I absolutely cannot wait! I am an Indians fanatic!!

Do you all have a favorite (or best) time to hook?

Obviously, I had not idea that a Page could not sustain multiple posts, so I have removed the rug hooking Tutorials page. All the FAQ and tutorial posts will just fall in with the rest of the general posts. So, continue to add Comments to the old Rug Hooking Tutorials post, as you had been. Sorry to confuse you – I couldn’t help it cuz I was confused! But I can help you with your rug hooking!

Not a great week to be living in Ohio! We got slammed with a blizzard of snow over the weekend. It will take me all week just to dig my garage out so I can get my car out, after I shovel my loonngg driveway so I can back my car out after I dig it out – is there anyone living in the South who would like to adopt me until summer? LOL!

Earlier in the week we had 6 hours of sleet, so under all that snow, there is a layer of ice to boot. My 21 yo son was in Florida for Spring break and decided to head for home on Tuesday since he was “out of money, Mom” — I told him we were having an ice storm. Being 21 and thinking “nothing bad can happen,” he set out for home with his 2 friends. They got about 20 miles from home in Ohio and hit a patch of ice/snow on the turnpike. I shudder when I tell you, he flipped the car over 3 times, crossed the opposite two lanes of traffic and landed in a ditch on the opposite side of the turnpike. The good news is – All the boys are okay with minor injuries and are at home, and no on else was involved in the accident! Unbelievable!  The bad news is – My son was driving (not his car) and the car was totaled. Even though this was a terrible accident, had they waited to come home this weekend as originally planned, they would have hit snow and terrible weather the entire way home. So, I am really counting my blessings . . .

Not bad enough? My computer crashed and burned on Monday last week and I was without it and all my files, web site, and blog all week!! My drive had to be erased and reloaded with Windows, so I have spent that last 3 days reloading my software and recovering files (which fortunately, I had backed up on an external drive just a few days before the crash) — you always know when something is about to happen with your computer — it was hanging, freezing, and the like for a while before it bit the dust! So, another blessing – I am back with fingers crossed that things roll smoothly for a while.

Needless to say, no hooking got done this past week. If you ordered something from my web site, please be patient – I am just now retrieving those orders from my cart and getting ready to put your kits together.

So, since I am stuck in the house (nothing to do outside but shovel snow), I am trying to catch up with all of you . . .

A quiet weekend here at the Blog . . . so I figured since some have asked for help with rug hooking, I will just post a few bits of info on some of the basics. For you experienced rug hookers reading this, post a comment or question that would be of more interest and we can get some chatter going for you, too.

One common question from beginning rug hookers is about strip widths. Traditional rug hooking uses strips of wool, not pieces of yarn – that’s latch hooking (totally different technique and tools.) The strips of wool are pulled through the rug backing to form loops which create the design of the rug. Strips of wool can be cut very fine or very wide, or anywhere in between. When a strip cutter such as a Rigby, Fraser, or Townsend cutter is used to cut the strips, you select the cutter size to use. Cutters cut the strips in widths measured in 32nds of an inch. So if you are using a #8 cutter size, you will get strips cut into 8/32 of an inch (or reduce the fraction to 1/4 inch.) If you are using a finely cut strip, which would be considered anything in a #5 or lower, you are working with quite a narrow strip of wool (5/32 down to 1/32), which is used to achieve finely shaded designs, such as florals and scrolls. Primitive rug hooking uses a wider strip (#6 and above) wherein the shading is achieved through the use of textured wools, such as herringbones, checks and plaids rather than the graduated colors in a finer cut rug.

So, depending upon the style of rug hooking you wish to do, you will cut your wool strips accordingly. My favorite strips width is 3/8 inch, or 12/32; however, depending on your cutter, this will not always be a #12 cutter head — now it can get a bit confusing due to inconsistencies in the cutter manufacturers use of the numbering system when you get above a #8 cut. My Rigby defines the 3/8-inch cutter head as a #9, which technically is not or it would be 9/32 rather than 12/32. So, check with the manufacturer if you want to use a specific strip width above #8 to see which of their particular cutter heads match what you need.

Depending on the strip width you choose, you should match your rug hook to that. If you are hooking with a wider strip, use a Primitive hook, or if you use a fine cut, use a hook that matches the strip width you are using. My favorite hook? A Hartman, by far!! Especially for primitive hooking with wider strips – Cindy Hartman’s hooks have a larger diameter shaft that opens the backing holes enough to easily allow the strip to be pulled through (no straining and tugging), which also helps those loops lie open and full. the handles are very comfortable in my hand as well. Be sure the hook you use is comfortable in your hand and does not make you tug and twist to get the loops pulled up. If not, get another hook!

Any questions?

I get more and more emails and calls from folks who have taken a workshop or class, and then when they get back home or some time has passed since they last hooked, they have forgotten some of the details of what they learned. So, I would be happy to help with that.

 If there is interest in mini-tutorials or just Q&A here at the Blog on rug hooking, questions or problems with details or techniques, just leave a comment and let’s see what we can do together! If enough of you have similar problems, I can write up a tutorial to post here, otherwise, perhaps we can just learn from one another’s FAQ and the suggested solutions. Ask away!