Gifts In General

It's always difficult to decide what to get as a gift for someone especially when you do not know who will be receiving it. So I give what I would like to receive. Fortunately, this gift was well received because the recipient is as anal as am I, and I mean this in a most loving way!




I needle punched "Grandmother's Garden" by Stone & Thread (Warning: blatant plug.) purchased at Crossstitch-ville and finished the edges as I would a hooked rug...by whip stitching around the edge. I then glued it to the cover of a 6" x 6" photo album using a water based glue. If the album wears out, it can be detached and glued to whatever or framed.

So it's a photo album. What's so anal about that? Inside I placed "Knitting Project" pages where you can enter all the pertinent information. On the opposite side is room for a picture of the finished project. Most people can just remember what they knit. Well, when you get to be my age, you know that just isn't true anymore. I hadn't even hit 40 when I moved and started unpacking items that covered a ten year span in which I was positive I hadn't knit a thing. This is also when my journaling started. Just be glad I am only going to post on new items I'm working and not the past twenty years worth.

Rug Hooking!

What can I say about rug hooking? This is my latest passion and I can't get enough. Years ago I bought a kit with a two minute instruction on how to hook at a festival. This is NOT the way to start. I gave the kit away in disgust. I now know it wasn't me. It was the kit, hook, and instruction. The kit had size 3 cut, a hook that I found hard to use, and two minutes is not enough time for anyone to properly learn.

I later found a DVD on Nantucket Rug Hooking by Judy Taylor. Since I was a knitter and spinner and a stash to rival some yarn shops, this was a match made in heaven. The chair pad at the top is my very first venture into rug hooking. I simply threw a piece of burlap in the chair and drew the outline of the seat. Then I drew the picture. It's good to know the picture you draw isn't necessarily the picture you end up with. Otherwise, I would have ended up with two headed sheep and a house in the middle of the bay.

Since then I have watched Gene Shepherd's tutorial on beginning rug hooking...bought "Woolly Sheep", a #6 cut kit from Joan Moshimer when I was up in Maine last summer (I added an extra cloud)...




and Red Saltbox Americana, a #8 cut kit from Sharon Perry off Ebay this summer. Don't look for a bush in her kit. I added it. I can not leave anything alone!



Life is good and I'm hooked!