Grateful.  After the misery of being alone or on line, we are nothing but thankful to have our rug hooking community together again.  Green Mountain Rug Show will be open next month.  The ATHA Biennial and Sauder Village Rug Hooking Week both were well attended.  Now our little corner of the world is filled with the joy of sharing again.  Our classes in the studio have been super.  And our monthly hooking get-togethers each month are always filled with laughter. Just saying "Thanks ..read more

Today is a beautiful summer day.  Sunny, warm.  The university near me is graduating the class of 2022 and joy is in the air.  We will all have a healthy respect for the COVID virus (and all viruses from now on!.  But we are ready to break out of its stranglehold on life.  As the virus becomes more common, but less deadly, we are ready to join each other and laugh and care, and share.  No more false starts like last summer's start. The Eastwood School Florida sessions have been canceled five times.  We are ready to get our groove on.  We are holding clas ..read more

Ever wonder how some portraits of people or animals look so alive?  It's all in the eyes.  A little trick to engage your viewer is to put a little highlight in the eyes.  After all, eyes are rounded,and shiny, and reflect a little something in any light. So how do you make that happened with yarn or wool strips....a dot of a light color.  I almost always use white.  Sometimes it is a tail, a loop, and a tail.  Smaller eyes may need just two tails. Leave both ends long, twist them together to make a single dot, then cut it.  Here are some examples. Hope this l ..read more

There are lots of ways to frame or hang a hooked piece.  For smaller pieces, an inexpensive photo frame can make a big impact.  I love the easel backed ones so they can sit on a table.  Seems the new houses don't have much wall space anymore. So here is how I frame my small pieces.  Cut a piece of acid free mat just a tad smaller than the back piece of the frame.    Block your piece so it is nice and square and size it to just come to the edges or bit past the card. Using a strong button thread sew the piece tightly around the card.  Be sure to take big bit ..read more

  We all realize the time and cost of materials that goes into hooking or punching a rug-sized piece of art.  We also know that the market very much devalues what we put into it.   Most of us who sell our work, do so on consignment, which brings 50-60% of the retail price back to us, making the issue worse.  Selling retail is for the very special artists who are willing to  market themselves to galleries or gift shops or you have your own retail space.  Even then, the gallery takes their cut as you sell your work "wholesale" or on consignment again and there ..read more

I love to hook a great landscape.  To me it is as if I am painting with wool.  I was never a great painter and the use of wool that can be pulled out and changed is the perfect medium for me.  A landscape can be as easy or hard as you want to make it.   The easiest way is just to hook the picture without much thought given to the issue of light.  This is a perfectly good way to hook a landscape. I have absolutely enjoyed hooking this way and a rug comes out beautiful. You do not need me to read any further if you like to hook this way just trust your instincts and ..read more

  I thought it would be fun to explore some post-impressionism art, especially the use of color and the use of the brush strokes to capture the feeling of the artists of that period in wool. The art Post-Impressionism era was in the late 1800 to early 1900’s.  Some of the most notable artists would include Cezanne, Van Gogh, and Seurat. These artists rejected the realistic use of color and small brush strokes of the impressionistic painters of Monet and Renoir.  Post-Impressionists continued to use vivid colors and used a thick application of paint.  These artists distorted both the images and ..read more

 I had the great joy of being involved in the Barachois church's 200 hooked cushions project this year. In fact, several posts on the Hooked, Line and Sinker Facebook page have photos of its progress. The collection included 17 from the US and other countries. Here is the organizer, Remi Levesque, up to his ears in pillows.  I am in the process of collecting photos of some of the outstanding pillows and will write a separate post on that successful project.   But Remi is up to it again...he is starting a new project, USA50, to bring hooked pieces specifically from the 50 states to complement ..read more

Laura and I went "Pickin'" a few months ago and  went into a used book shop near the University of Rhode Island. In the back was an old library card catalog (remember those) filled with old postcards. We found one of the chapel where my brother and sister in-in-law were married in Watch Hill, RI.  That immediately was put in their anniversary card this year. We found tons of old photos of Europe and faraway places as well as local ones of the area. And then we found the holidays.  I guess it was common to send postcards the way we send or used to send greeting cards at holidays.  Now, it is o ..read more

Just in time for Halloween (or the Day of the Dead) I received an email that I thought I would never see.  Patti Simpson, Lita McCormick, and Sandy Myers from Georgia and South Carolina had done the Sazerac Sea pattern as a challenge.  Their story is in the post titled "Three Seas" Well they said they were going to do the Talavera Pumpkin together too.  Even after the first challenge---those punkinheads.   Well here they are, again as different as green peppers, jalapenos, and poblanos.  Thanks for sending them in, ladies.  Just love them.  Que sigue? (What's next?)     If anyone else is up ..read more