Crazy Horse Quilt Runner: Week 3

This rug is a blast!  Here is this week's overall progress photo...

  

Each individual motif is almost like little making a little individual rug.  I have really enjoyed planning each one and then making it come to life - not that everything has worked out on the first try!  This week I completed the goat, the chicken, that green/black/white heart, the orangey star and the outline of another star - and... ta-dah...some background!!! 

I have decided that working the background on this rug is going to be like one of those mind exercises designed to keep the brain sharp in one's "later years".

Here are some close-ups of the goat and chicken.  I'm afraid I am not In Love with the background color on the far left - behind that outlined star.  It actually looks a little greener in this photo than it does in reality.  It reads "gray" to me when hooked - much grayer than the large piece of uncut wool.  I'm just going to skip over those background areas for the time being... give it another shot later when more of the other colors are hooked in.  Maybe it will grow on me... or maybe it won't!

 

 The heart above took two tries.  The original pattern showed two tiny little birds in that top section above the wavy line.  I made an attempt on the birds - with some 4-cut strips I had in my stash.  They were terrible!!!  I'm just not cut out for narrow cut.  After all that, I really like how it ended up with the black and white.  That same wool will be used for another chicken.

It is time to put this next rug away until next Christmas, so I thought I'd show it to you.  I love the pattern I and love the way it turned out.  I added the swirly sky and the brown border to look like a wooden picture frame.  It was easy to hook - but challenging and time-consuming to finish the edge!  I have always thought that the four corners of a rug were the hardest to finish (when whipping the edge with wool yarn).  This rug has 16 outside corners!  Plus 12 inside corners.  Those inside corners were tricky because it was necessary to cut the excess linen down into that corner in order to turn it back.  Anita had some special material that we adhered to that area to reinforce it before making that cut (so the linen wouldn't unravel).  (I got this pattern from Anita White.) 

After a few unattractive attempts at attaching the twill tape on the back, here is the final solution.  It took Forever!!!  Maybe it is just because this is not my favorite part of rug hooking...

It's snowy here!  But absolutely beautiful too.  The snow made some very cool patterns out on the patio.  Thanks Mike for braving the cold weather to go out there and get these shots!  The first two are the top of a round table.  The bottom one is a birdbath.  Only Mother Nature could create something like this!!!

 

 

Crazy Horse will only get four days of hooking in week 4, but I'll still show progress next Saturday.