MARCH-ING ONWARD

Well March is marching onward.  I can't say I have a lot of progress on anything to show you but I did make my annual trek to Sebring with my mom for the Scrub Rug Hooking workshop.  This is about the 10th year I have attended and it is always a great retreat and get away.  Everything is so tropical in that area of the state.  I can't believe I didn't take a single photo of the beautiful landscaping and flowers.  If you are interested in seeing what it looks like - just check my blog post from March last year.  One reason I didn't take any photos this year is because there was thousands of these creepy little bugs that covered everything outside, plants, cars, buildings, people.  Someone called them blind mosquitos and someone else called them mayflies.  I wasn't familiar with them nor did I relish running into clouds of them so I spent very little time on the lovely patio and pool side this year.

We started off our trip to Sebring by stopping off in Mt Dora to visit with friends who stitch every Thursday in this charming farmhouse owned by the city of Mt Dora.  How cool is that !  lunch at the fabulous Garden Gate tearoom, it was a delightful way to spend a day.

 

We motored on from there to Sebring and settled in with a nice meal at the hotel restaurant.

 

Mom and I were both in Katie Puckett's class.  Katie is a dear friend and lives in our area , she is also an awesome dyer, designer and certified McGown teacher.  I had chosen a HUGE rug canvas months ago after being enchanted with Basque Fairy Tale by Michele Micarelli in the ATHA rug magazine.  Katie was kind enough (seriously was that kindness??) to bring the canvas back for me after meeting Michele at a camp in Michigan where she was vending this past summer. 

I had wanted to try hooking with dip dyes and this rug seemed like the perfect opportunity.  You can't see much of the intensity of the colors in these less than stellar photos but she used 3 different dip dyes for that corner motif that extends to the bottom of the rug.

I wanted the two birds in the middle to be more of a focal point than they were in Michele's rug.  Again more dips were used. These birds have a rather Aztec type look to me - The reason there is a hole in the wing is because I am waiting for more wool to be dyed to place there.  It will be a brilliant spot dye and will be used in the outer border and a few other places in the rug.

It's hard to tell scope but this is 1/2 of the rug - it is 25" X 86" - hope I live long enough to finish it LOL - It will certainly be an ongoing project for years but I adore what has been done so far and I will enjoy working on this project with my DF Katie.

This is my mom's rug from class.  She had a ball working on those chickens.  Katie showed her a new way to do stars and she did a great job on them.  This is a Polly Minick canvas but Katie drew it off for mom and also did the color plan.  The blocks in the border will be scrappy blocks, good way to use up worms and small pieces of wool.  She did finish up #2 chicken so she doesn't have a hole in her wing like I do.

 

well friends - just wanted to show you what we had been up to lately.  I have more photos to show of my classmates projects as well as some of the rugs from the exhibit.  I will try to make another post of those photos soon. 

 

Until we meet again my friends, thank you for visiting my blog, for commenting and for following along.  I hope spring has sprung in your area and that you have fun with your needles and hooks this weekend.