New Season, New Rug

Paisley Sheep

While I have not -- obviously -- been writing, I have been working.  This rug, Paisley Sheep, has been in my brain for a couple of years.  It has changed some since the initial design -- I always thought it would have a black background -- but it is one of those rugs that hooked up quickly, because all the work was done in my head.  I love when that happens, and I LOVE this rug.

The sheep's coat is made from the Standing Wool Rug technique, another rag rug technique that I learned from Nola Heidbreder and her sister Linda Pietz years ago in a class called "Historic Rugs".  Lots of people incorporate this technique into their mats these days -- they are often called "quillies" after the Victorian paper craft of quilling.  I like to stick with the original name, but I don't stick with the original technique.  I like to shape my circles using a needle and thread, squeezing and manipulating them as I go, often using layers of different colored wool.  I love to do it, but it takes a lot of time, as every piece is hand sewn and then applied to the linen backing before I begin hooking.  I've used the same technique to add interesting edges to smaller mats as well.

The leaves and paisley shapes in the background are hooked with by sister Barb's hand-dyed wools -- the colors are Irish Moss, Watermelon, Citron, Vintage Teal, Mango, and Nova Lox.  You can find them in her etsy shop: thimblefolk.  The brown is my own hand-dye, Hedgehog Brown.  I decided, once I had the body of the sheep completed, that a black wool background would create too harsh a contrast.  The brown worked out just right.

The finished mat measures approximately 18 by 20 inches -- not too big.  The pattern will be available in my etsy shop shortly. Click here to get there: The Paisley Studio.

Happy Spring!  The warm weather can't be too far away.

Standing Wool Rugs

Historic Rugs, taught by Nola Heidbreder and her sister Linda at the Green Mountain Rug Show in 2005, was the best rug class I have ever taken.  Our fingers were never idle.  The class covered a wide variety of rugs including toothbrush, knit, crochet, broomstick, locker hook, shirred, proddy, kitchen table, and my favorite, standing wool.

Like hooked rugs, standing wool rugs are easy to make.  The art of it comes in the application of the technique and the color of the wool used.  I've used the standing wool technique for jewelry, small mats and to add interest and humor to my hooked rugs.  Here's my Juggling Jack mat, designed in 2006, and his companion, Juggling Cat (who needs a serious cleaning).  The circles are all strips of wool, rolled and stitched onto the linen before any hooking was done.

Lots of versions of this technique have been popping up all over the rug hooking world lately.  People call it "rolled wool" or "quilling" (referring to the Victorian paper craft of the same name).

I find it interesting to watch the wave of a new technique roll through the rug hooking community.  Several years ago it was the age of embellishment, then the era of self portraits done mostly in shades of blue (or so it seemed).  Impressionism or pointillism -- depending on whose blog you read -- is also surfacing in rug making.  Not long ago, rug hookers were limited to purchasing patterns and using wool dyed by a teacher to create an almost paint-by-number rug.  It's good to see our horizons expanding.