Rock Creek Hook-in and Rug Show: Show Rugs Part 1

As promised, here are photos of the rugs on display (and a few in vendor booths) at the 2011 Rock Creek Hook-in and Rug Show in Lenexa, KS.  I have 70 photos - so I will split them up into several different posts.  

There were so many wonderful rugs.  I think I have them all, unless one was put up and then taken down without me seeing it.  It is not always possible to read the tags to see who designed the rug, but if you really, really, really want to know about one, leave a comment here on the blog to let me know which one it is and I will try to track it down!  Some of them I know and will list below...

These two are Edyth O'Neill designs.  The top one is hooked by my rug hooking teacher Anita White!  These are both beautiful.  I love to see the same design hooked different ways.

 

Two more Edyth O'Neill designs...

 This is a fun pattern... here are two interpretations.

A variety of fun rugs...

 

 

 

 

 

This one is a Bea Brock design...

 Another Anita rug!

Everyone's work is so inspiring!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This photo does not do this rug justice.  The background is Really Neat!  Can you see the shadowy effect?

This design is an old spice label, by Kate.  There will be another label rug by Kate in the next post.

This was designed and hooked by Bernadette - from our local group The Woolhawks!

Check back soon.  I will post the rest of the photos - maybe tomorrow.

Crazy Horse Quilt Runner: Week 8

This was not a big week for hooking progress.  There were a few of life's interruptions to deal with!  But here is the progress shot for week 8.  At the end of this post, I'll tell you how many hours I've logged so far!

 

I hooked in more background over on the right - all of it except the streak behind the cat.  That is supposed to be blue and I am still struggling to find the right one.  I have a few pieces of a nice blue-green hooked in there right now, but I have only a small piece of that wool.  I am hoping to find a perfect as-is wool at the Lenexa hook-in today for my "blue" background color.

I also changed out my "green" background wool this week.  I was not In Love with my original green (it was too gray), so I replaced it with a new green - see it under the chicken above.  I love it!  It is brighter and cheerier and seems much more at home in this rug than the gray one did.

I was sure ready to switch to the other side of the rug!  Over on the left side, I completed this great flower...which reminds me of an ice cream cone...

...and the last of the three similar leaves - this one is the smallest.  This has not yet been outlined in the off-white.

Out of curiosity, I've been keeping track of my time on this rug - including time spent hooking, thinking about which colors to use, cutting wool - all the tasks that go into making a hooked rug.  I began on January 1, 2011 - 56 days ago.  I have logged in 123 hours so far!  I did some measuring...  the border of this rug is 1/3 of the total area and the center part is 2/3.  I have about half of the center part done - so I am 1/3 complete!  If I tack on some time at the end for binding, I expect to have close to 380 hours in the rug at the end!  I feel like I am getting faster as I go along, mostly because I have to think less about colors now, so maybe it won't be 380 hours...  we'll see!

Today is the hook-in in Lenexa.  As usual on hook-in day, there is a bad weather forecast, but I hope to get there and see all the vendors and all the fabulous rugs!  Check back soon for pictures!

Crazy Horse Quilt Runner: Week 7

Seven weeks!  I am feeling pretty good about my progress on Crazy Horse, especially since we were gone for 13 days.  Here's this week's overall photo...

This week I stayed over there on the right side...

...finishing the orange cat, the bluebird (love!), a star, a big leaf, a chicken, flower, and a heart - and some background!

Mr. Cat has his eyes on my bluebird!

I had a lot of fun with this chicken.  I have always wanted to make a chicken with a black and white wool!  Here she is!  She's so happy, she LAID AN EGG...

The leaf above is similar, but smaller, than the leaf out in the middle of the rug (Week 1).  There are three of these leaves in the rug that are "similar" so I am using the same colors on each, but making them each unique in some way.

Next week I will reveal how many hours I have spent so far...  it is kind of scary.... but I have enjoyed every minute.

Next Saturday is the Rock Creek Hook-in in Lenexa, KS.  Last year I photographed many of the rugs on display there, and I will do the same this year.  I will put my pictures on the blog - it may take a few posts to get them all on here, but check back when you can.  There are always fabulous rugs there!

Happy Hooking and Happy Everything Else Too!

Crazy Horse Quilt Runner: Week 6

I'm back from my warm and sunny vacation to Arizona.  Well, "warm" might be a bit of an exaggeration.  There were a few very cold days when we were in the region of The Grand Canyon, Flagstaff and Sedona.  More about that later...

Like Week 4, Week 6 also lost a few days to vacation, but I did make progress.  Here's the overall shot for this week...

In the last post, I showed the rabbit and the dog over on the right side, with no background.  I decided to fill in more background around them this week.  If I got that done, I would start on the second cat - which I did!  You can see him taking shape at the top.

I am unsure about those two cream-colored patches on the dog.  My eye goes right to them every time I look at the rug.  I think I will tone those down with a different solid color - or maybe just use the same texture as his other two patches.  I was also disappointed (at first) with that flower motif between the rabbit and the dog.  It was all finished, background around it and all, and it basically disappeared!   For some reason, I had not outlined it in the off-white.  On this rug, some of the smaller motifs are NOT outlined (like those red and blue circles in this photo), but that flower between the rabbit and dog is too big to be NOT outlined.  So after much fiddlesome "reverse" hooking, I got the outlining around it and voila!  It reappeared and I think it is wonderful!  I think I learned that lesson...  if I make that mistake again I probably won't admit it!!!

Here are a few of my favorite shots from our Arizona trip.  I have fallen deeply in love with all the cactus forms out there.  I'm a Kansas girl, and though we do see the occasional ground-hugging cactus here, I must say I was Quite Taken With and A Bit Surprised At the beauty of the cactus.  These shots are a combination of photos taken in a cactus "show" garden in Phoenix and on hiking trails around Sedona.  

 

 

 

And, a place that needs no introduction, The Grand Canyon....

 

 

 

 

 

 

So beautiful, so inspiring. Thank goodness for cameras because it is impossible to put this much beauty into words.

Check back next week for more rug progress...I'm going to be concentrating on more animals...