ADIOS APRIL

Bye Bye bunnies, see you later chickies - no more spring weather or delicate flowers. 

April has been a busy month - my birth month - so I always seem to be in the "12 days of birthday" mode during April.  It's been a fun month and I hate to see it go and with it our cool temps.

I did a few fun things in April - most recently I went to a retreat with our rug hooking guild on St Simons Island.  I did some yarn shopping at the Stitchery - that's always fun.  My mom was admiring a granny square afghan they had there done in Noro yarn and so under the pretense that she would learn to crochet - she bought yarn for one of those.  Needless to say I am "hooking" along on *HER* afghan but it is fun and I probably have not done any granny squares in 30 years, this is just one giant square - you keep going round and round and round until it is as big as you want it.  A photo next time I promise.

This is the year I am hoping to finish some rugs - yes RUGS plural - I really didn't want to work on a fall rug in April but this rug was more than 1/2 finished.  After another long concentrated weekend of hooking - I am happy to say I'm in the home stretch.  I only have 2 more leaves and a few picket fence pieces left.  This is a fairly large rug 28" x 32" and I believe done entirely in a 6 cut for those rug hookers who may be interested.  It is a design by Beverly Conway and most of the wools are from Bev.  I took the workshop a few years back.  Actually the color plan is my creation - it was a private workshop with lots of newbie hookers and she had her hands full so the experienced hookers were basically on their own to pull wools from her massive stacks and see what we could create.  Some of the greens and the browns were from my stash.  I really really like this rug - it is one of my favorites and I will be SO glad to see it finished so I can use it this fall.

 Here is the view from our room overlooking the marshes surrounding the retreat center.  I always say I am going to spend some time on the balcony but it was quite windy on the marsh and when we weren't shopping or eating - we were trying to get some serious hooking done.

The other fun workshop I took this month was with a very famous knitting celebrity.  Sally Melville came to Jacksonville - to my LYS Knit Witz.  I took a class called knit to fit that went along with her newest book which I purchased at the workshop.  Sally is just beginning to make some of her designs available on Ravelry - so for you knitters out there - check out her Stair Step Shawl - so cool.  I don't know what has been wrong with me and the photo-taking. She brought a ton of designs and I only took this one photo of her lecturing in class.

I am still stitching - I promise I am but I just have not been doing much for the past month.  I started a couple of new pieces - you know an attack of my start-itis.  I started BBD Violets Blue and Mary Moteshed by Needlework Press - I'm still trying to devote time to my SL focus piece - the Hart sampler but I just have not been motivated to work on it, sadly  . . . .   I am supposed to be devoting at least one night a week to that WIP.

I have a couple of fun things coming up in May - our annual rug guild hook in and then a needlepoint class with a teacher I had last fall.  So I am looking forward to those two upcoming events. 

I wanted to take a moment to welcome my new followers - I'm finally over the 100 mark and it makes me happy to know that people find my ramblings of interest.  I hope you will leave me a comment - I am always excited to hear from you.  May Day is tomorrow - give someone a flower if you get a chance.

NO FOOLIN' IT'S A CELEBRITY SIGHTING

Happy April Fools Day Friends !

I trust everyone had a beautiful Easter.  I know we sure did.

On to the big news - last weekend my mom and I made our annual trip to Sebring FL to attend the Scrub Rug Hooking workshop.  It is always a great time for us.  I have tons of photos to show - so many in fact that I am going to have to break this up into two posts but I wanted to give you the exciting news first. 

On Sunday night we were hooking away in our classroom and someone from the upstairs class ran into our room and said Bill Cosby was sighted in the hotel.  YEAH right - we just chuckled and kept on hooking.  Didn't really give it too much credence actually.

Well the next day - there was all this commotion coming from the lobby - everyone was rushing out into the lobby.  Bill Cosby in the flesh.  Here he is with our teacher Vivily Powers and in one of his famous shirts.  He was talking with all the hookers (rug hookers) laughing and joking of course about being surrounded by "hookers". 

Here is a  photo with my mom peeking out from behind Bill Cosby, Janet a classmate of ours on the left and Vivily Powers our teacher on the right.  What a great shot.  He was very gracious and cordial and just sat there in the lobby quite non-chalantly while all these woman posed with him - sat by him and asked him a zillion questions.  Apparently he had been in Orlando over the weekend for an appearance and then was appearing in Sebring.  It was a fun experience and fortunately he was very patient with all the "fan"fare.

On to the rug exhibit - there were some lovely rugs in the exhibit and some real big rugs.  There were great examples of all styles of hooking, fine shading such as this beauty above and wide cut primitives, bright bright bright -

You always see an abundance of bright Florida colors in Sebring

Searsport Mom and daughter team Julie and Chris taught at Sebring this year.  This is one of their rugs which they also designed.

It was fun meeting them and shopping in there mobile store - WOW - great hooks made by the daughters husband - I'm sorry but I don't know which one is Chris and which one is Julie.  Their colors on this rug are just wonderful.

You can always see lots of bird life in Sebring around the lake.  Here is someone's blue heron which was color planned by our teacher Vivily.

exquisite !

lots of tropical themed rugs in this area of the state

This is one of Carol Feeney's creations.  Carol designs rug canvases and this was her first teaching assignment.

Another of Carol Feeney's rugs - you can't see it but the flower petals were ruffly with some type of roving.   Lovely - just lovely !

Another teacher's work - Marq Miller from Canada who will be teaching at Sebring in November.  I think she said this was a wide cut shaded project.

Another of Marq's rugs - she was working on this one last year when she was in our class with Polly Minick if I am not mistaken.

Many of these rugs I don't know the designer or hooker but they were all just so lovely.

Here's my little wedding pillow by Dianne Kelly sharing a seat with a cool zebra purse.

Elaine's Peking duck - she was in our class 2 years ago and Vivily did most of the wool for this project.  Nice to see him framed and finished.

Is this tiger realistic or what ???  Sue was in our class this year but you can see Sybil Osicka's influence all over this work of art.  Looks like a photograph.

Another of Carol Feeney's designs - DF Donna was hooking this canvas in Carol's class this year.  It will be fun to see it coming to life.

I know this canvas was designed by Connie Charleson (Connies Cauldron) - fellow guild member and friend.  I don't know who hooked it.

This rug was hooked by Fern G - I was completely captivated by this rug.  If I had the money - I would have asked to purchase it.  the purple flowers on the right and left are proddied.  Love the verse - the rug was almost finished except Fern was hoping to buy wool to complete the border.  This was probably my favorite rug I saw this whole weekend.  Fern is quite the character - she has been hooking at least 50 years and she is always all smiles and full of sharp witty remarks.  She is one of the people I always look forward to seeing only when I travel to South Florida.  A real treasure and her repertoire of hooked rugs is simply amazing.  A lifetime of hooking have created many works of art.  I am so pleased to have met so many people like Fern.  The hooking community is a wonderful one and part of the fun of going to these workshop events is having time to really sit and talk and listen to the life stories of the people you meet along your journey.

I still have the Inn on the Lakes gardens and our class WIP's to show in another post.  Until then - keep those needles and hooks moving.