VAE entry receives award

I found out last night that my entry, "Bowl of Eggs", received an Honorable mention in the Visual Arts Exchange exhibit, Home and Hearth.  It was nice to see that a fiber piece, mine at that, received an award. 

It was a beautiful evening to be out and about in Raleigh last night.  People were everywhere.  The galleries were busy.  It was good to be a part of it.  I wished I had taken my camera.  I know, you're probably thinking why didn't you take pictures with your phone.  Well, I'll tell you.  My phone is so old it doesn't have a camera.  Maybe I'll break down and get one, someday.

"Bowl of Eggs" juries into VAE show

I just received word that one of my still life pieces, "Bowl of Eggs" was juried into the Visual Arts Exchange exhibit "Home and Hearth" opening this Friday at 6:00.  Stop by and see it in person if you can, First Friday in Raleigh is always a good time.

A new Applique pattern

Though I'm still working on and off on my latest rug I needed a break.  I spent some time in the last few days working on some new designs and came up with a new applique project.  I usually carry a small notepad in my purse to jot things down when need be but lately I discovered I was having great difficulty finding it in my purse when I needed it.  My purse is quite large and I was feeling like Mary Poppins with her carpetbag pulling things out and not finding what I wanted.  I've fixed that now.  I got larger notepads and made a sweet cover to keep the paper pad neat and tidy inside. It's 5.5" x 8.5" and holds the small legal pads that can be found at the dollar store or other office supply stores.  I'll have patterns and kits available shortly.
 Here's the result:

New Geometric

A year or so back I had taken a bunch of leftover wool and grouped them by value.  I then over dyed each group with a particular dye.  The lightest value grouping I over dyed with yellow-orange, the next with a yellow-green and on until the darkest value group I  over dyed with a violet.  I've already hooked two geometric rugs with this 'leftover' over dyed wool. 

This past week I started another geometric to try and use up more of this stash.

Stash of over-dyed woolens

start of new geometric

close up

I am planning this as I go, hooking in five different colored stripes in each 4" square as I go.  It is relaxing to do this type of design as it is very straight forward, a break from the animal pictorials I've done lately.  The only thing to be concerned with here is color balance and technique, hooking in straight rows requires really good technique.  If the loops aren't even it really shows in this type of design.

Moving on...

It's been a long time and for good reason.  We're moving!  I've packed up the studio, put it in a temporary local, (my dad's house) and we're in the midst of building a new house!  I'm very excited because in this new house I will have my studio, WITH dye work area all in the same space!!!  Here's the pictures of the progress!!!

The old studio, all emptied out :(

The new "Studio"/storage

Yes, as you can see, I'm 'living' my dream. 

the closet

Yes, it is full of wool too!

the temporary dye area, in the 100 degree plus heat...

the new studio!  so far

The builder has been making steady progress.  Though we are not schedule to get in until November I'm hoping it will be sooner.  In the meantime I am still filling orders as fast as I can.  Please be patient with me.
Thanks a bunch...

Animal House Exhibit starts next week!

My work is being exhibited as part of "Animal House", a collection of artwork featuring animals at the Cabarrus Arts Council in Concord, NC.  The exhibit starts June 4th and runs through July 26th. 

For more info go to....

http://cabarrusartscouncil.org/the-galleries/current-exhibitions/

A new piece...Little Boer Goat

I spent some time this past week with some good hooking friends and was able to get a new piece done.

Little Boer Goat

I will be participating in a group show at the Cabarrus County Arts Council in
in Concord, NC,  June 4th - July 26.  The show is entitled "Animal House". 

Stop by if you're in the area.  The Arts council is in the old courthouse building in the historic downtown.  They did a lovely job renovating it.  The town has shop quaint little shops to visit and restaurants to appease your palette.

Yes, I'm still here...

I've been so busy in the past month getting prepared for a workshop I am teaching in the NC mountains, the beautiful town of Hendersonville.  It is just lovely here.  The workshop began yesterday.  I just finished up day two and have one more day to go.   The students have been all very enthusiastic and real troopers!  Though I do get some looks of uncertainty in their faces at times they forge ahead and for the most part trust me. I keep telling them they have to get enough hooked in before they can make a judgement that something just isn't working.  You can't make a judgement on something if there is no context to it. 

We have a real animal faire!  A dog, some goats, some sheep, a cow, and even some zebras!

Here's some pics of the gals at work.

Finished! (except for the framing)

Last Sunday PBS aired the Downton Abbey series 2 marathon.  I had never heard of this series.  I'm often in the dark about goings on.  Anyway... my husband and I are addicted.  So addicted that I went to Target and bought Downton Abbey series 1. We started watching one episode a night on Tuesday.  Tonight we see episode 3. We're trying to savor it bit by bit.  I can't wait. 

So the point of all this is, you ask?  Well, the beauty of rug hooking is that you can sit on the sofa and hook while watching the TV.  That is as long as what you are working on isn't too complicated, you can get a lot done.  Hence, I was able to get the background hooked in behind my sheep! Yeah! I did end up going with a blue-violet and I really like it. I shaded it from light to dark from the bottom to the top.  I think it adds a bit of drama.  After all art is about the drama, isn't it?  All that's left now is the lacing, matting and framing. 

After a bit of being sidetracked...

This past week I got sidetracked by a large dye order.  Needless to say no work was done on my sheep piece.  I did however take some time the past two days to get some more accomplished.  I was able to get the entire sheep done, except for the tweaks here and there that I will make before I finally call it finished.  I still need to do the background and am leaning towards a blue-violet.  Because the sheep's fur is mainly gold I thought going across the color wheel and using the complement, blue-violet, would be a good choice.  Hopefully I'll get some time in the next day or two to try this out.  For now...

Sheep Profile Days 4 and 5

I 'finished' the face in the past two days and moved on to the top of the head.  I always say finished with reservations as I know I will certainly go back and do some tweaks here and there.  I find it best to leave things alone until I can get the big picture and then make my adjustments.   So for now...

Continuing progress...day 3

I took some time today, in between dye batches, to do some more work on the sheep portrait.  There are some things I want to tweak, now that I see the photo.  This often happens.  Looking at a photo of your work gives a different prospective.  For now this is what I have...
 

Continuing progress...

I got the nose and mouth hooked in and am working up the face towards the eye.  I also tweaked the eye a bit.  I continually hook some in and then take some out and adjust.  I want to get it just right.  I'll continue on the face before starting on the neck and body.  I think he's off to a good start!

Getting back to my roots

I've had a lot of distractions lately and have not had time to participate in my first passion, rug hooking.  Well yesterday I dug out some photos I took last fall while in Virginia.  My husband and I took a long weekend and went exploring some of the historic sites there.  We took in The D-Day memorial in Bedford, Appomatox Courthouse, Thomas Jefferson's Monticello and James Monroe's Ashlawn Highland.  We really had a great time. Of course all the while I was on the lookout for animals that are willing to be put into a hooking.  James Monroe came through for me.  They have Romney sheep at Ashlawn Highland!  I took more sheep pictures than anything else.  It usually takes about 50 pictures to get one or two that I can work from.  Just when you think you've got a good pose, and your ready to snap the picture, the animal flings his head away from you and all you're left with is a blur.  So yesterday after sorting through my pictures I found one I could work from.  I cropped it, played with it a bit in photoshop to enhance the values and set to work drawing up my pattern and digging around for some wools I could use. 

The eye of the animal is where I always start as it is the focal point of the piece.  Next, I'll move to the nose and then I'll place in highlights and shadows and then fill in with the middle values.  This method always works the best for me. 

A very busy January comes to a close

Wow, time flies.  I've been so busy I don't know where the time went.

 First, there was the quilting and Fiber Art Marketplace in Sanford.  All went well.  I introduced some new applique patterns.  Spring Bunny and Easter Chick.

Spring Bunny

Easter Chick

 After the show I had some wool orders to fill.  Some lovely fresh, bright colors.  Here's a sampling...

Some pretties!

In amongst all this I'm getting patterns and wool prepared for a workshop I'm doing in Hendersonville in March for the Tarheel Ruggers. A lot of great animals are going to be hooked there!  Sheep, goats, dogs..and zebras too!  It's going to be great.

Then there are classes...  I taught an applique class at Whistle Stop quilt Shop this past week.  While I'm on that subject... I have set up a BEGINNING RUG HOOKING CLASS for March 3rd and March 24th.  Connie doesn't have the info for it published yet but keep an eye out on her website.  You can get there by following the link above.  The piece is a simple geometric mat just 6" x 6".  Enough to give a beginner a taste of the craft but not overwhelm them.  Here it is...

Beginning Geometric Hooked Trivet

AND then... the wool applique quilt I designed "Mon Jardin"  finally got quilted and bound.  Realizing I was just TOO busy I had the Quilting Cowgirl quilt and finish this up for me. She does great work!  This quilt is going to be done as a BOM (Block of the Month) starting in April at Whistle Stop .  This means that for the past two weeks now I've been writing up/drawing up all the instructions.  I think I finally have it finished.  It is more work than I realized it would be.  Here's a picture of the finished quilt...

So as January comes to a close I now realize where the time went. I hope February is as productive.

Thanks for following along...