IT'S TIME TO HOOK!!!

It's finally happened!  I think the Mojo is back!  Yesterday for the first time I really enjoyed hooking.  I really cannot imagine me without my hooking frame set up with a large rug in progress.

I have been working on my large pictorial for some time now and I think it is about 85% finished.  I felt as tho I had hooked myself into a corner.

I am not going to show the whole rug here since I did that some time ago.

 When I finished hooking the man's face I knew that I had a problem.  I needed something for his shirt that would balance color with the rest of the

piece and that would show thru the bird cage properly.  I could not use green because of the grass that surrounds the wagon and the wagon itself.

My "rule of thumb" when encountering a hooking problem is

not to de-hook but take the piece off of the frame and

let it rest for a week.  At the end of that time I lay the piece on the

floor and take a good look.  Usually by then the piece will tell me

what it needs.

This piece told me it needed a soft blue.  Something in the "steel" gray family or like worn out jeans.  I took a trip to Grant Street Woolworks and found exactly

whaat I needed in Linda's "odds and ends" jar.  I only need

a very small piece and this was perfect.

Thank you Linda.

As I am sure you know, I cannot go a whole week without hooking

so when I took the pictorial off of the frame I had to put

something on it.  Since the pictorial is being done with a #3 cut,

I decided it was time to take a break.  Instead of getting out

one of the large pieces already in progress, I started a new piece.

 This is Edith O'Neal's Lion.  I have had this piece for sometime

and have been anxious to see what I could do with it.  I am using a number of cuts but mostly #8 and #8.5.  Quite a change off from a

#3!

 As yoou can see, I have not finished the face at this point.

The face is hooked with a #6 cut and some #3 around the eyes.

I know that Lion's have amber eyes but with the brown/amber of the

beard I thought green eyes looked best.

Close up of face.



Close up of beard.  The beard is a #8.5 cut and is done with a brown/amber tweed and accented with a red/brown/orange plaid. The Lion's body is being done with three different dye lots of Dottie Ebi's Spots #1.  These materials are quite interesting because they were dyed by two different hookers.  Two dye lots are over Woolrich's while wool and one dye lot is over Dorr's yellow.  It is interesting for me to see the difference in the wool from one dyeing concept to another.  It is also interesting to see the difference that dyeing over colored material makes.  I hope you all try this sometime in the near future.

In the meantime, we have had some wonderful weather.   Hope all of you are

out enjoying this weather bonus.  Eloise has been spending

her mornings on the deck where it is nice and cool.  Of course she

has to greet the neighbors and their dogs as they

walk past.

Hope everyone keeps hooking and enjoys the short time left

of our summer.  When school is back in session (today is the first day here)

you know summer is about over.

Next week our family has a wedding and a

crab feast.  More on this later.   Have a great week.

Doris