HOOKING AND A DEAD BRAIN!

On my last posting, I showed pictures of rugs being

worked on at the ATHA Mason/Dixon meeting.

These pictures continue with that meeting.

We are so lucky to belong to that group.  Among

our members are three wool vendors.  There

is always lots of heavenly pieces of wool to choose

from if you are in the market for wool  (and

who isn't?)

This is Barb looking over wool from one of the

vendors.  I think that is Bob with her.

 Look at this beautiful wool - all for sale.

 This is the table of another vendor.

It is so great to have these ladies come regularly

to the meetings.

The program for the last meeting was really interesting.

We divided into four groups and the groups

rotated every half hour to another station.  Four stations had been

set up.

 At this station Sharon is showing the ladies

how to crochet and edge on an oriental rug so that

fringe could be attached.

 This group is learning how to do

the herring bone stitch.

 This group is being shown how to frame

any size hooked piece.

This group is learning about prodding.

Now on to the DEAD BRAIN!

I have had a really busy week.  The only thing that

stayed home was my camera!!

BRAIN DEAD!

On Wednesday evening I had a delightful time. 

My great grand-daughter invited me to

dinner with she, her sister and her

sister fiancee.  We had a wonderful time.

We went to the best steak house in Hagerstown

and had a great meal.  The nice thing about these

grands is that they enjoy my company.  For some reason,

who knows why, they think I am the font of all information

and seems to love my stories of life "in the dark ages."

On Friday I attended a social hook-in at

Barb's house.  It was a delightful day.  Everyone

was in such a good mood.  Rosalie was knitting,

Sandy was pinniung together a sweater that she had just knit

amd everyone else was hooking.

Some really nice pieces are being made in this group.

On Saturday I went to a meeting

of the Boonsboro ATHA group.  It was a cold, rainy day

and not a lot of members showed up.

It was the kind of day that you just wanted to stay in bed.

Programs for the future were discussed

and Elinor shared with us her beautiful

Quilts.  Her work is so beautiful, and she is very

prolific.  We were all thrilled by her presentation.

On Sunday, yes out again, much to Eloise's

displeasure - to a bridal shower at the Holiday Inn.

A very nice affair for my oldest great granddaughter,

She is being married on November 4th

at the Cortland Mansion in Hagerstown.

This is why I say I am brain dead.  All of these

nice things and no pictures!  Don;t know how I could have been 

so thoughtless!

Thought for the day . . .

Life can be complicated

but happiness is really pretty simple.

 Marianne Moore

Until next time

stay well, be happy an

tell your family that you love them.

Doris

Rugs, Rugs, Rugs . . . . . .

On Tuesday I went to the Mason/Dixon Chapter

of ATHA meeting.

They had a most interesting program

which I will tell you about in my next posting.

In the meantime, here are some of the rugs

at the meeting.

 This rug was a second place winner at the Maryland

State Fair and was hooked by

Barbara Twigg.

 This is another of Barb's rugs.  This one

is in porgress.  You could pick this fruit right off

of the backing.

 This adorable lamb is being hooked by

Pat A. for her daughter.  Love the background

color.

 A closeup of this cutie's face.

Pat has some work to do on his scarf and

a good bit of background to finish.  I

believe she plans to make it into a pillow.

This rug was a blue ribbon winner at the

Maryland State fair.  It was hooked by the

Vice President of the chapter, Sharon Kollman.

The picture does not do it justice.  It

is a real beauty!

 Last but certainly not least, a Christmas Wall Hanging,

hooked by the late Ruth Dietzel.

This piece is a true work of art, with very subtle

shading and the technique of the master's

touch.

When I next post, I will tell you about the

program which was very interesting and a

clever idea.  I also have pictures of the

event.

In the meantime, it continues to be cool here and

rainy.  This is great hooking weather.  I now have a

good book on DVD which I am sure will

expedite my hooking.  I have finished the lion and am

now working on the background.  I also am

collecting all sorts of green plaids and checks

for the leaf border.

Hope everyone is having as good a week as

I am having!  Keep those hooks in motion!

Doris



THE BIG DIG . . . .

When we moved into this house eight years

ago, at the end of our driveway was the ugliest shrub

I have ever seen.  It was some variety of Yew and had been

allowed to spread and obviously never been taken care of.

In addition, it was full of bag worms.

It had to go!!!

Richard and my daughter, Kris, worked at it for many hours and finally

got it out and the bag worms taken care of.

It was decided that a round flower bed at the end of the driveway would

be a nice addition to the yard.

For several years, we added to the garden and it

was a beautiful success.  Then as things change during

the years, other priorities took place of this garden

and it became a shambles.

It had to go!

 Here is Richard just starting.  He probably is

wondering how and where to start.  It was such a mess that

I felt ashamed for the people driving down our street.

 Over grown, full of weeds.  Sedum plants out of hand.

When they were planted, they were just twiggs.

At this point they are approximately 5 feet in diameter!

 Those tall "weeds" on the far right of the picture

are Stargazer Lilies.  Everything else seems to have turned to weeds.

 What a mess!

 Now all of the plants, having been dug up, reside in my

garage.  Lauren thinks her garage is a mess.

Mine looks like a jungle.

 A FEW Iris, Stargazer Lillies, Glads, Stella Doro Lillies

Firecracker bulbs, Daffy-dills, and about a dozen

other plants.

This is how it looks now.  The next job is to rake it out and

plant grass seed.  That is Richard's job when he returned from vacation.

In the meantime it is better than the jungle at the end of the drive.

Now my job is to divide all of the bulbs and

get then ready to be replanted.  Hopefully I can get

started to morrow - I anticipate that it will take

at least a week to sort, divide and clean all of these

bulbs.  Wish me luck with this project.

Thought for the day

Beauty is not in the face;

beauty is a light in the heart.

Kahil Gebran

I attended the Blue and Gray hook-in yesterday and have some pictures to show you later.  I hope everyone has a great week

Doris





WHERE  DID   IT GO???

Summer, that is -

I still have two pairs of white pants with

the sales tags on them.  Just didn't get the time

to wear them. 

 

White shoes and purse put away

for the winter.

Heaven forbid! you should wear anything

white after Labor Day. (according to my mother).

Fortunately, it was nice on Labor day until late in the afternoon.

Richard and family had a wonderful

cookout with Beer Can Chicken the

featured menu item.

The Bent Willow Community also had its annual

Labor Day feast at the home of the

Paprocki's and a large crowd it was!

Guess I have the "I'm sorry it's over blues and

the "I love fall and winter" smiles.

I have started hooking in earnest again and am

really enjoying it.

Here's the latest update on the new project.

The Lion's face and mane are finally

finished.  I am very pleased with

the way he turned out.  When I started putting the

background (more on this) in, he became the

color of gold that I had anticipated.

It's amazing how the color changes when you

add background or any adjacent color.



Closeup of mane and face.  I used several different

cuts to get the face as I wanted it.

Most of the rug is being hooked with a #8 and 8-1/2 cut

but the face is done with a #6 cut and some

smaller accent pieces.

I love his tail.  It almost looks like a

dragon head.  I treated it the same as his mane

except I used smaller cuts here so that

I could get the detail in.

About the background.  It is the loveliest piece of

wool that I think I have ever had.  It was

dyed by Helen Connley Howe.  She is a New York

Teacher.  I first met her in 1974 at

a teacher's workshop.  I think that she

has been unwell lately and is no

longer teaching.  The wool is a Woolrich product

in what I call gray-blue (not sure what Woolrich calls it)

overdyed with Navy Blue and abrashed with bright green.

What makes the piece so rich and velvety looking

is the way it was abrashed.

Sorry, it's true beauty does not photograph

for it is really lovely.

It's another foggy day with rain this early am.

Guess we are supposed to have rain until

Saturday.  Sure makes for a dreary day!

However, it is  a good excuse to spend

the day in the hooking room.



Thought for the day -

Never go to a Doctor whose office plants have died.

Erma Bombeck

Doris







SHE'S A FICKLED WOMAN. . . . .

Mother Nature, of course!

On Friday evening I was so tired of hearing about

Irene on the radio and tv that I decided to walk

out onto the deck and see the sky for myself.

 What I saw was one of the most beautiful skys

I had ever seen at this time of year.

 Have you ever "painted a sky" on wool

to use in a pictorial?

Wou7ldn't it be wonderful to use this as

a color plan?

 So peaceful and serene.  It made me wonder

what mother nature was thinking.

 This is a lady of miracles.

She gives us great beauty to enjoy and

it's all free!

Saturday evening was another story!

She turned her back on us and gave us an

angry sky.

 Even tho the sky looks angry there is

still beauty in these clouds.

 The sky had gotten very dark and

the clouds were rolling, the wind was

blowing and the trees were swaying.

 It was raining steadily but not hard.

I love the clouds so I stood for quite some time watching them as they

rolled by forming picture after picture.

Actually, the storm did not hit this area to badly.
We lost power for about 4 hours and
it did rain heavily during the night.

Irene was an uninvited guest at my grand daughter's
wedding that was supposed to be today.  Due to the
location, it was cancelled and they were
married in a private ceremony yesterday.
We will hold a family celebration
several weeks from now.

So, onto "Plan B."  We have made reservations
at a seafood resturant in Hagerstown for
"all you can eat" crabs.  I can think of nothing better
on a rainy Sunday afternoon that all you can
eat crabs.
Hope everyone is safe and well and that
Irene leaves us in a hurry.
Doris

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





UP TO MY ELBOWS!

In tomatoes, that is!  This is about one forth of the harvest of red tomatoes from Saturday last week.

There are also yellow tomatoes.  I love the yellow ones.  They are so sweet and juicy.

 The tomatoes in the bowl on the left are cherry tomatoes.  We estimate that we had about 500 of those.  Very small but did they pack a flavor!  The best we have ever had and, of course, the label got thrown away so we don't know what variety they are so we can plant the same next season.

Some really nice eggplants.  Since I can only eat so many veggies I googled eggplants and found that I could freeze these.  It is very simple.  Peel the eggplant and cut into thick slices.  Blanch in lemon water for no more than 4 minutes, cool and freeze.  I am hoping to make some eggplant casseroles this winter and some eggplant fritters.

In this pot is tomato sauce.  I took many of the cherry tomatoes and put them in the food processor.  I did not puree them but left some small chuncks since I wanted the  sauce to have some texture.  I added chopped onion and green pepper.  I spiced the sauce with bay leaf, oregano, and fresh basil.  I let it simmer for about half an hour.  I ended up with 4 containers of sauce.  I froze three of them and kept the 1 out to try.

To this container of sauce I added, garlic and garlic oil, some more fresh basil and about a dozen shrimp.  I heated it just long enough for the shrimp to cook and I served it over spaghetti.  It was yummy!  It makes me know that I can add many things to this basic sauce and have many different meals.  One of the nicest things about the sauce is that by using the processor you can not even tell that the skins were left on the tomato, after all, that is where a lot of the flavor is.

Now I have time to go back to my hooking!!!!!  Have a wonderful week everyone.

Doris