A mat for every hearth

A Mat for Every Hearth.

<For the grass, the upper right is a tweed heather (a mix of mauves, greens and beige). The other areas of green are a mix of abrashed wool with my favourite wool green dye using Majic Carpet Dyes.

Primitive Green

1/2 teaspoon moss green

speck of black

speck of yellow

1/8 teaspoon brilliant green

1/8 teaspoon of chocolate brown.

Dissolve the dye in a large measuring cup. Add 1/4 cup of vinegar. Pour over wool that is soaking in a large pot of hot water. Pour the dye over, stirring the wool a bit. Remember, the wool should be crowded in the pot to achieve the mottled uneven colouring.

Add a bit more vinegar so that the wool takes up all the dye while gently simmering. This recipe should dye about 1/3 of a wool blanket. Take out some of the wool before all the dye is absorbed to achieve lighter swatches. Place the dyed hot wool in another simmering pot and sprinkle over some salt. Gently simmer about 5 minutes to set the colour.

Here is a close up of it from a different rug:

one, two, three

The Rule of Three

I have been thinking about harmony of colour and motif in rugs (and in life). It seems that there is a natural order of design that is pleasing to the eye. The rule of three comes to mind when I think of this.

So, I did a search for the rule of three and found many things that, although I was aware of them, I never really considered how they were all connected with this special number, three, or trio, triplets and triads.

Are groupings of three just by chance or were they contrived so that they fit in that harmonious blend? Did there just happen to be three wise men, three parts to the Trinity, the father, the son and the holy ghost? How convenient.

Even in speech, many historical phrases come in threes such as Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité, and Veni, vidi, vici. There are an abundance of websites telling us how magical this number three is in speech, stating that it all comes down to that human brain and how it processes information. Apparently three is the minimal number needed to create a pattern that is easy to process and remember.

There are many things that use the rule of three such as aviation, computer programming, Wiccan philosophy, math and economics.

When designing a rug, elements of 3 do in fact work well. Instead of having a dozen colours, stick to a group of colour that harmonize and can be repeated 3 times. Motifs also look pleasing to the eye when repeated three times.

Reading about the rule of 3 led me to other rules and wikis which lead me to a never-ending informational path, one of them, math and nature. The sunflower, beautiful for a reason due to the sequence of Fibonnaci…Does everything come down to a number?

Phyllotaxis

Hooking with Textures

There are many different kinds of wool in various states of finishing that can be hooked with. I love trying out new things; some things work, some do not.

One of my favourite things is wool roving.

Silk roving is amazing to work with, and glides through the fingertips in a liquid river of softness.

Silver Silk Roving Sky Background from The Journey

Wool roving is great to work with as well, and makes great whiskers in primitive cats.

Slub wool is another favourite. I asked a spinner what exactly is slub wool, and she said occurs when the wool fibres make lumps in the yarn. It is becoming quite popular now, to have yarn that has uneven texture which gives it a raw and primitive appearance. Are we moving away from trying to make things so perfect that they appear unnatural and giving into a more raw and primitive state of existence? Let’s hope.

Illusion wool is very beautiful, and adds a bit of sparkle in a rug. It comes in swatches of wool and is then stripped into the desired width. I cannot find it anymore, so if anyone out there can recommend a canadian source, I would be grateful! The mermaid tail below has illusion wool to mimic the reflection of silvery scales.

I have also used a special fibre called “angelina fibre” that can be found with Legacy Studio in Alberta, Canada. It is a highly reflective and very pretty fibre that I used in the following rug. I did find that it seemed to set once the rug was blocked but this was fine.

There are many more fibres to play around with, they key is to choose what you like and make it work. I would not recommend using these fibres for a rug that is going to have heavy foot traffic, as some of these fibres are delicate and will not hold up in the long run.

Lamb’s Tongue

Lamb’s tongue, a carpenter’s plane with a deep narrow bit,
for making curved grooves. –Knight. (http://dictionary.die.net/lambs%20tongue)

I would love to ask a carpenter to show me what he makes with this type of plane…I did not realize there was an actual tool to make lamb’s tongues. Very interesting.

Here is another definition from dictionary.com:

lamb’s tongue
–noun Architecture, a molding having a deep, symmetrical profile ending in a narrow edge, as in a sash bar.

Here is an example of a wooden molding:

There are also Lamb’s tongue (or Lamb’s ear) plants that I used to have in my garden. Amazing the stuff you find out while on the internet 🙂

I have come across a wonderful blog on how to make a penny rug, and this really helps with the blanket stitch needed for the lamb’s tongue border. Here it is http://bitsofwool.blogspot.com/2008/09/how-to-make-penny-rug.html

It is a great site. Check it out!

Borders are never boring

Beautiful Sia, Don’t Bring Me Down

Borders take some time to do if you make them quite wide. Sometimes all that a rug needs is a small little border.

If the centre of the rug is very busy and bright, a dark neutral border may add to it and sometimes a busy and bright border may detract from it. It’s all about balance I guess.

Sometimes it’s nice to hook a verse or quotation in the border, but, keep in mind, this border will be a bit wider to fit in all the lettering.

My Great Grandmother’s rugs usually had a black or navy border. She used whatever materials she had on hand, and did like the brighter colours in the body of the mat.

Sometimes a border can be the edging of the rug, such as a a crochet edge, braided edge, or a wide binding of some sort. I have done all three and each one creates a very different look for your mat.

The above is a crochet edge. It could be made wider, such as the picot crochet edge featured below:

This was a fun border to hook, it involved one row of slip-stitch crochet then the picot edge. I like the effect it gave. Would this be durable for the floor? I do use heavy wool yarn, but really, many people are not going to use these mats as the traditional welcome, wipe your muddy boots on mat. If they do, that is fine, but of course nothing will last very long if it is continually trod upon with force and dirt wiped on it.

Below is a lamb’s tongue border that I really like; I have not done this one again, and have been thinking I will for the current rug I’m working on.

I must admit, the braided border was not a picnic to do. I am a terrible sew-er. I refuse to spell sew-er properly, as to me, it looks like SEWER, the place where waste goes lol.

Videotape Radiohead

 

Hookin with yarn

Hooking with yarn has long been a tradition in places like Cheticamp Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. The hooks they use are very tiny.

Here is a great website which also talks about one of the most famous Cheticamp Rug Hookers, Elizabeth LeFort: Cheticamp Rug Hooking

You can also visit the website here: Elizabeth LeFort.

I sometimes visit Cape Breton in the summer time, it is a long drive, a little over 5 hours usually, but it is a great place to visit. There are so many little rug hooking shops now, it is hard to pass by one without stopping in. I purchased patterns and wool yarn years ago and did hook a rug for my son in Cheticamp yarn.

Hooking with yarn does take longer, and the backing has to be very high quality so that the tiny loops will stay in place. Sometimes you even need to hook more than one loop of yarn in a space if that space seems to be wide and one loop is not holding well. Most Cheticamp wool is not that thick and is usually hand dyed by the sellers. The bonus is that you do not have to cut any wool on the stripper.

There are some remarkable finely shaded wool rugs in Cheticamp and many opportunities to purchase new rugs as well as the older ones.

I came across one antique rug in Cheticamp that was hooked in a diamond pattern. Very pretty and very finely crafted. I have been told that some of the older rugs from the finest rug hookers were done in this way.

Here is another great website on Cheticamp Hooked rugs: Cheticamp Rugs

The older Cheticamp rugs had the yarn dyed with natural dyes and will usually be very faded, but they are still very pretty. The Bell Pull and the Chair Pad I purchased were probably made in the 1970’s or even sooner. They have synthetic dye and are still nice and bright. I do suspect that the Bell Pull is older than the Chair pad.

Diamond Pattern on the back of the chair pad:

Hooking faces

Hooking peoples faces has to be one of the most challenging things about rug hooking for me. I notice that many rugs will have people turned to the side, or show their backs, faces hid in big hats etc. and these are very excellent solutions to the challenge of hooking faces.

I have found that turning the mat over, and hooking the eyes from the back to the front makes them less bumpy looking and they blend in well with the face. I also try to hook my facial loops a bit lower than usual, I’m a “high” hooker anyways, so sometimes I forget and have to reverse hook…

One thing I have learned with hooking faces, is that less is more. The more detail I try to use, the less I like the outcome. And being a primitive style hooker, I use a wide cut of wool, so a lot of detail is not my thing. Sometimes I will hand cut a small piece of wool for the eye lid, the pupil of the eye etc. or use a small amount of wool yarn to outline the eye.

I have heard of rug hookers clipping the loops on the faces of their rugs. I think I may have done this, but not recently so I cannot remember.

My favourite portrait rug hooker is Roslyn Logsdon, here is her website: Roslyn Logsdon

Amazing work.

Hooking Down the House…

Speaking of houses, hooking houses is great fun. There are many types of textures you can achieve with houses. For stones, a nice dark tweed with gray “grout” is very effective. For siding, make sure to hook directional, that is in straight lines. This is one case, where tunneling is not necessarily a bad thing. Tunneling is when you hook rows of loops, loops lined up congruently. Usually we do not like to tunnel when we hook, we like to hook one row and then stagger the next row, much like the teeth of a zipper. Yet for wood siding on a house, I like the tunneled look, it makes it more noticeable.

To really see directional hooking, have a peak at the antique Grenfell Mission mats. Grenfell Mission Site, here. They are usually hooked this way, with the ladies silk stockings.

Here is a house with plaid roofing to mimic tile:

Plaid is very useful, it adds texture and detail without having to change wool colours.

Again, these stones in the above house were hooked with plaid.

The Log Cabin was hooked with a tweed and the roof, green. I was going for the thatched roof look, but did not quite achieve exactly what I was hoping for. If I had a dark green tweed, now that would have been perfect 🙂

Another tip when hooking houses, even though it’s nice to do them in straight rows of hooking, I always outline the house first, and then another row outlining the shape inside, as it will give a neat edge. Now, if the house is very tiny, you don’t need this inner outlining. Remember to always hook a couple of outlines on your borders and outer rug edge too, makes a tidy look.

People are tough

I am going to talk about hooking people. Some hookers have a great knack for this, many of them are fine shaders and I’m just so much in AWE of their artistry. I am a primitive style person, so I do not strive for the fine detail. I have tried to do the fine detail in faces, and end up spending HOURS and HOURS on one small section, as I”m never pleased with it, and keep ripping out what I do. Instead of people’s faces I end up with orangutans. A lesson in humility for sure.

So, not wanting to make an orangutan rug, when I hook people I try to stay away from a cartoonish look. Something I’ve tried, is to take a photograph, and with a photo editing program ( I do have photoshop but I do not have the patience to learn it. One of those things my Dad was in the process of teaching me before he passed away. So now I think it may be a type of mental block that I dislike the program.) So, I use iPhoto, as it came free with my Mac, and it does not have much in the way of photo editing sauf I can change the brightness and the saturation of a picture. When I want to hook a face, such as that of my Mermaid rug, I took the picture (was a picture of a woman but I’m not saying who, lol) and put it on less saturation, so it’s black and white, and maximum brightness. Then, after I print off the photo, I take a black marker and trace around the eyes, and what portions of the nose that have shown up. Not all details will be visible, and this is what I am aiming for.

In this mermaid rug, very few details are hooked into the face.

I have just started another rug, no name yet…woman and ocean…it is based on an Emily Dickinson poem that I love. Once I get the face hooked I will post a picture. If she doesn’t look like an orangutan, that is. At which point I may have to move onto something else. I have 3 rugs on the go, a rarity for me, as I always used to finish a project before moving on. These days I start one, get blocked on it, or dislike it, and move onto another. Odd. Not like me at all. What is going on?

Bringing out the animal

Hooking animals is great fun. You can incorporate all kinds of different materials for fur, feathers and faces. Tweed is a favourite of mine for hooking a tabby cat.

Black and White Houndstooth plaid is another favourite for hooking primitive chickens.

Sometimes I hook in the whiskers, other times, not. I’ve also added some thin embroidery floss as whiskers by knotting it in the back of the rug. I’ve heard some use dental floss as well. Finely shaded rugs create realism whereas a primitive style mat evokes a bit of folk art fantasy.

I love getting commissions for pets. Before you accept a commission, it is a good idea to agree upon the colours, size and style of hooking. I usually request half payment once I get going on it. It is easy to email the buyer pictures of the rug’s progress and it gives the buyer a sense of inclusion in the process. Sometimes I will need to change something and I will send them a quick email to verify this is ok. A little bit of courtesy can prevent a myriad of misunderstandings later on.

Skyler’s Rug, for my son.