Due to possible bad weather later this morning, I canceled the Friday studio class but was able to get a bit of hooking done.  Here’s my progress so far:

• I added the viney leaves that I added to the rose to the corner flower.
• I ripped out some of the circles in order to place the next flower.  This is another motif from the new pattern, Flower Riot.
• I haven’t fixed the rose yet.
• I began experimenting with the corner of the hit and miss.  I didn’t want to do the expected miter.  I’ll play around with it for a while.  I don’t have enough of it hooked to make a decision yet.
• I’m playing with the idea of changing the background of the border.  I would leave in what I have hooked, keep the dark brown around the flowers, but where the viney leaves hit the outer edges of the border, I have the opportunity to make a change.

I decided to do a bit of doodling.  This is one method I use to generate ideas.  I’ve become very fond of irregular borders.  As I examined the photo above, I began to wonder if the lower line was too straight (even though it is no where near straight and NOT hooked in the straight of grain.)  But the question becomes, if not that then what?

I’ve blogged before about my Wacom tablet. What I love is how I can take a photo of my work in progress and then draw right on it.

If you’ve become a regular reader of the blog you know that I tend to experiment and let my ideas take me where they will.  Many of the ideas I propose don’t make it to the final rug.  Others will get tried but discarded.  But I am a firm believer that if you get an inspiration to try something and you don’t try it, you’ve lost that possibility forever.  Follow those ideas!

Thank you to my subscribers, you are 109 strong as of this morning.  If you’ve told a friend, a special thank you.

I set aside a chunk of time today for rug hooking.  I have some of the circles done in the corner.  Only the first outline and the first row of background are done on most of them.  When I add the little bits of color in between, I need to pick some lighter and brighter colors to bring in a little sparkle.  I’m trying to use up the scraps in my scrap bin, but I think I’m going to have to start cutting.

I’m playing around with the idea of putting words in the outermost border.  Should they be very subtle and hard to find or a bit more obvious?  What if I use cursive script?

I reduced the size of the rose because I used the wrong line to position the corner flower and I was planning on adjusting it anyways.  I ripped out just a few rows of the lower half and rehooked with the same wool.  I didn’t realize just how dark that lower petal is.  I need to punch up the yellow and/or add a brighter red.  I decided to add the viney (is that a word) leaves.  I really like those.

I need to think about how I am going to turn the corner with the hit and miss.  I know I don’t want a simple miter, but something a bit more interesting.   I’ve been sketching some ideas and I will hook them up next week.  It will probably be about a week until the next post.

I changed out the beige that I had in the flower and used the golds that I had laid out in a prior photo.  The dots at the ends of the lines in the flowers were getting lost so I used some of the new blue green plaid, B11, that is one of my new favorites.

B11 Large Blue Green Plaid with Rust
Absolutely beautiful for hooking leaves. Great choice for those of you who just don't like green. For those of us who love green, this wool helps to round out your choices.
Available Qty: 67
Price: $23

Here’s what I got done yesterday.  I wanted a lighter or brighter yellow to snuggle up to the red lines, but I was limited to my scrap bag.  I could not find what I wanted because about a year ago I had removed all the yellow and put them in a separate basket.  I tried a beige instead.  It works, I like the sparkle, but it does not work with what I already have hooked.

I pulled the scraps in the photo for a possible replacement for the beige.  If they don’t work, I will need something even brighter or lighter, but still yellow.

For those of you watching the progress of Flower Riot, this is one of the motifs and it is easily hookable in a large cut.

New flower from Flower Riot Pattern

If you have been following the blog, you’ve seen my progress on my new rug hooking pattern, Flower Riot. I’ve decided to use one of the flowers in the corner of the border.  Because I will be hooking all day today during the Love of Art event in Pemberville, I should have some progress to post tomorrow.

Hooking this flower also gives me an idea of how large the Flower Riot pattern will need to be.  There is a delicate balance where a flower is too big or too small to hook.  I intend Flower Riot to be hooked with a wide cut.

Beginner Square by Cindi Gay

This is the project that I encourage all beginners to start with for many reasons:

• All straight lines, no curves
• Small enough to finish in a short time, often less than a week
• Inexpensive
• Useful. Makes the best coaster.
• You get to pick your own colors!

Get it on the Backing

Start with a piece of backing about 18″ x 18″. Even though the finished size is only 6″ x 6″ you need extra backing so it attaches easily to your frame or fits in your hoop. Backing is cheap compared to the wool we use, Don’t skimp. I will often leave 12″-24″ of blank backing around my designs so I have plenty of room to expand wherever the rug wants to take me. I have several feet extra on all sides of my room-sized rug because I am designing it as I go. On smaller pieces I make sure to have enough backing so I can still hook the edges of the pattern in the center of my frame. Okay, I’ll admit it. I like to be comfortable. Scrimping on the backing is sure path to frustration.

If you are buying a commercial pattern, ask to have extra backing around the edges, particularly if you may be adding an additional border. Most designers will do this for you, but expect to pay an extra charge, after all you are using more backing.

Zig zag the edges of the backing or wrap them in masking tape. I’ve done both. The masking tape is fast but it can irritate your arm as you hook. If you have a Serger, then by all means use it!

Drawing the Pattern

Fold the backing into four layers and mark the center. Open it up and draw lines from this point north, south, east and west. Now measure from the center 3″ out on all four lines. Draw lines at this point to indicate the outer edge of the pattern. You can leave this in pencil or make the lines darker with marker. If you use marker, be sure it is a Sharpie Industrial. They are permanent at temperatures up to 500 degrees. The regular Sharpies are permanent at room temperature. When we finish the rug and apply steam, your rug is no longer at room temperature.

You will need about 2 1/2 ounces of cut strips. Use a variety of cuts and solids or textures. This is your chance to try them all. Start with one of the squares on an inner side. When you hook always stay slightly inside the line. It will not matter in this pattern, but you might as well start with good habits.

Change the color of your wool as often as you like. Avoid starting and stopping at the same place in each row unless you are deliberately creating a design. Hook some strips to the end of the strip, stop others before you get to the end. Have fun. Don’t make this hard. All colors will look odd until you have more hooked around them. Just keep going. You can always go back and adjust. That is one of the best features about rug hooking.

Repeat this process for all squares and finish it off. See my favorite finishing method in the rug eSchool.

Here are Some Other Hooked Squares

Hooked by the Sylvania Ladies. I cannot remember who hooked which one.

Send me a photo of your Beginner Square! Send it to cindi [at] cindigay [dot] com.

Flower Riot Pattern in Progress

This is usually a step no one sees. My favorite design tools are scissors and tape. I printed out several copies of my preliminary design and cut them apart and re-assembled them. I now have an idea of the rough placement and I can individually adjust or redraw each flower. I may have to adjust or even redo this step several times.

I realize that this may be hard to see in the photo, but I am designing first and documenting second.

• The good: I like the busyness of rug and the very small areas of background. I know busy is not for everyone, but I get bored easily and the less background the better. Some of the flowers are in their final design, others have to be refined.
• The bad: I need to resize several of the flowers and work on the overall design including color placement. I always design with the final product in mind. A good line drawing does not always make a good rug. You need places to put color that will balance. I’ll show you how I work through this in future posts.

With lines and color

OK, hookable may not be a real word but it is a real problem. Have you ever gotten a pattern that you loved and when you apply color to it, it becomes a different pattern? I usually try to hook all the patterns I sell. Because I have spent the last two years hooking the room sized rug, I had to develop another way to be sure my patterns can be hooked. What looks good as a line drawing does not always translate into hooking.

I start with my line drawing and apply color. Then – and here’s the important part – I take away the lines. That is what happens when you hook, right? So here is the witch pattern with all the colors filled in.

With the patterns lines hidden

I use Adobe Illustrator.  It is a complicated (and very expensive) program, but one that I am used to and could not live without.

But you don’t have a fancy computer program?  No problem.  Use wide tipped markers, the fatter the better.  Put a sheet of tracing paper on top of your line drawing — not on top of the pattern in case the markers bleed.  Just transfer your pattern to paper and draw on top of that.  Color in the areas.  Then remove the tracing paper.  Now you can really see what it will look like.

The problems I ran into with this pattern during the color process:

• Hair.  Looked wild and crazy as a line drawing, but just sad once I applied fat strands of color.
• Wrinkles.  Not really a problem, but they added character, so I added them to the line drawing.
• Hat.  It needed those wrinkle lines to give it definition.  Instead of just doing the wrinkles, I added a dark line down the right side of the hat and under the brim.  A slightly lighter shade of brown on the left side and across part of the brim finished it off.  Also added the dark to the bottom and right side of the patch.

Because of the nature of this pattern, you could also hook on all the lines with a thinner cut to keep the cartoon look.

So what is next?  I will develop the other Halloween elements of the pattern.  Once I have them all drawn, I can rearrange and resize them until the pattern is just right.