If you’re entering anything into the Albuquerque Fiber Arts Fiesta – like I am – be aware that the call for entries ends March 1. That’s just a week away from today!
Tynan’s such a good boy. He’s trying to hide all the un-hooked parts of this rug.
I’m entering three rugs into Fiesta, and two aren’t even done yet. There’s still hooking to finish on the biggest one. Tynan’s sitting on it there on the right, effectively hiding the undone parts. Good dog! But I don’t think the Fiber Arts Council will fall for that trick.
Hence, it’s a short post this week. My little fingers have a lot of work to do. Check High on Hooking’s Facebook page; I’ll put pics of my entries up when I’ve gotten them all loaded and can take a little breather.
Have you considered entering Albuquerque’s Fiber Arts Fiesta? You don’t have to be from these parts. (In fact, I read just today that something’s coming all the way from Brazil!) Check out the call for entriesnow. You still have a week.
This week’s blog is all about the photo…of the dog. Because everyone seems to enjoy his weekly updates of the larger rug I’ve been working on since early January. Here’s this week’s:
Tynan is the new face of High on Hooking. Here he “relaxes” on the current rug. (T-shirts hooked into a traditional pattern gifted to the Adobe Wool Arts Guild here in Albuquerque.)
For those who are wondering, Tynan is an almost 9-year-old Welsh springer spaniel. (His birthday is next month.) Some of you might notice that he’s looking a lot less scruffy in this pic; he got a haircut just yesterday. He’s become fond of demonstrating how much dogs (and even cats) love hand-hooked rugs. In fact, he believes that every dog deserves his or her own rug. Fortunately, High on Hooking can help all you dog parents and grandparents with that. Finally, Tynan will do pretty much anything if he believes that food will be involved. Yes, he did get a treat after his photo shoot.
We’ve got another photo or two. This is a mug rug my niece requested after seeing other mug rug sets on my Facebook pages. In this case, she sent a pic of the mug for me to work from.
“Kendall’s Cupcake mug rug. (T-shirts, beads, pom-pom.)Niece Kendall with her mug and custom-hooked rug. Doesn’t the kid just slay you?
Thank you, Old Pueblo Rug Hookers, for a marvelous hook-in! Can’t wait to go again next year. Better yet, I get in free in 2018. Read on to find out why.Sparky’s mango and red chile (from Hatch, of course) milkshake.
Just like I wrote last week, four of us from the Adobe Wool Arts Guild (AWAG) did indeed pile into a Subaru Outback early Friday morning. And we were off on our annual (okay, my second and Melinda’s first) Tucson adventure, albeit with colds and coughs and arthritis flare-ups. Between the coffee/tea break, lunch at Sparky’s in Hatch (yes, home of the Hatch chiles) and a couple of gas and pee stops, we finally pulled into the Best Western around 5:00 p.m. that evening achy and tired of sitting.
You know you’ve got excellent lodging when the desk clerk tells you about the free, yes, free, happy hour. Sure, we’d brought quality alcoholic provisions, but why open them when someone’s willing to give you something just as…as efficient for free? We hung there the next evening too. Lest you think we drank our way through the evenings, we actually hit up Guiseppe’s, an Italian place across the street from the Best Western Friday night. I had the best mussels! (And not just because they were the first ones I’ve found since I moved out this way a year and a half ago.) Saturday night we headed to a traditional AWAG stop, the deli, Shlomo and Vito’s. Just like being in New York If you don’t happen to notice the ubiquitous saguaro cacti in the area.
Cathy Kelly’s colorific wools.
Sun and 31°F greeted us Saturday morning when we headed off to La Paloma Country Club. The Old Pueblo Rug Hookers (OPRH) throw a swanky affair. Good food (even for those of us handicapped by a gluten- free diet), door prizes, vendors, views of the golf course, and a silent auction. Melinda, Cathy, Mary, and I joined up with Nancy and Mary S. and parked ourselves at a table with a view. Cathy and I set up to vend. Me, some mug rug sets and Cathy, a butt-load of hand-dyed wool. Display rugs were in another room.
A close-up of Adele Yorke’s display rug.
Despite the posh surroundings, it was a hook-in just like the others I attended in churches back in New England. Lots of chatter, food, wool, and rugs, lots of rugs. I was asked to speak for a few moments on hooking with t-shirts. Better than that, I won a surprise door prize: free registration for next year’s hook-in. Woohoo! And I managed to snag an old rug in the silent auction. Anyone know anything about this mat?
A rather elderly hooked rug I acquired in the silent auction. Anyone know the artist? About the mat?Adobe Wool Arts Guild members from left to right, Melinda, Mary S., and Mary.Check out the “quilling” in Rita Vail’s saguaro cactus rug. Rita’s one of the Old Pueblo Rug Hookers.A most beautiful rug by Beth Carlson.
Now that I’m back, it’s time to get down to business. I have to finish my Tynan rug for March 1 so that I can enter it into Albuquerque’s Fiber Fiesta. I did decide to not kill myself to get the traditional rug done for then too; too much hooking and too much going on in my life. Plus, I need to start making product for the summer and any shows I’m doing. The jury’s still out on the Rail Yards Market. I’ve got a class to prep for April
Rugs at the Old Pueblo Rug Hookers Hook-In in Tucson Saturday.
at the Española Valley Fiber Arts Center. You all know the drill: Life relentlessly marches on. But for one weekend, at least, I escaped thanks to the Old Pueblo Rug Hookers.
Hook-in news? How was Eliot? Others?
Lastly, below is the weekly report from Tynan the Dog on the current rug. We didn’t get as much done this week as we’d like, but so much was going on. And who hooks that much at a hook-in what with all that chitchat and other activities?
Tynan’s weekly update on the traditional rug (hooked in t-shirt). Photo taken January 30.
“Seize the day.” I decided that would be my rallying cry today after I listened to Ellis Paul’s song.
She comes to my bed like a whisper
Slips in the sheet like a ghost
Says in my ear “Hey mister,
You need to take this girl to the coast.
I need to kick my feet up in the ocean
Feel the taste of the salt sea spray
Baby let’s live in the moment
For it feels like life is taking the moment away”
Seize the day, Seize the day, Seize the day…
–Ellis Paul
The song goes on from there. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a video of him singing it. Sorry.
Frankly, it’s not been a great month. That it’s only January makes it all worse! My grandmother died early this morning. She was 95-ish, and it was expected. Hell, I’m 52; how great is it that I even had a grandparent still alive? One that would swim in Long Island Sound all the way through November into her 70s? Bike and drive into her 80s? Loved her husband to pieces and her cats and dogs as well? I need to be like that.
There are other family issues, other losses. Someone’s lost a job. Two friends have recently lost their dogs. Tynan had a dental emergency last week; suddenly nine (yes, nine!) teeth
Someone was under the weather the morning after his extractions.
had to go. Not sure why as he’d had a cleaning less than two years back. But at least he’s still among us, back to his old self, albeit without so much chewing.
Then there’s just the general tenor of the whole country lately, and this week specifically. We’re so divided in our…dissatisfaction. What about a collective attitude adjustment where we focus on the positive for a change? Maybe do something with it.
So, I’m seizing the day, my day. It’ll be a quiet one, and that’s okay. There’s writing this blog post, applying to this years Railyards Market, cleaning out some clutter and getting some laundry done. And I’ll continue hooking my rug, one of two that needs to be pretty much done come March 1. (That’s the cut-off date for entries in this year’s ALBUQUERQUE FIBER FIESTA if you’re interested in sharing some of your work.)
Seizing the day for me doesn’t have to be a big, bombastic event. All it means is that I’ll do what I set out to do, that I won’t bitch about other “stuff,” you know that crap you pretty much can’t do anything about anyway. It means that Tom and I will take Tynan for a little walk later during which we’ll notice the blue sky (oddly enough, it’s been raining the past few days here) and the birds overhead. We’ll revel in the 50-degree temperature, look at the snow on the nearby Sandia Mountains, and remind ourselves of how smart we were to move to New Mexico.
Are you seizing the day
or will you let all the negativity get you down?
If you can’t lighten up when you see these little dolls, you’re never going to! (Artist unknown; pic taken at Española Valley Fiber Arts Center.)
Happy New Year and welcome to 2017! Yes, my tree is still up. Tomorrow begins the de-Christmas-ification here at High on Hooking.
Happy New Year and welcome back to High on Hooking! So excited to have you here. If you recall my last post, I talked about resting up during the holidays and considering what I want to do in 2017. Not sure I really rested, but I did manage to cut back some of my social media use, and I have to admit I enjoyed that and taking a few weeks off from blog writing too.
I did finish my class proposal for the Española Valley Fiber Arts Center. Hopefully, I’ll hear back from them soon, but in the meantime buddy Melinda and I are hoping to get up north on a yarn-centric field trip next week. We’ll stop at the Center on our way to say hi. And we have coupons for the shop. Yea!!!
Another goal was more reading; I did that! Hell, I’m still doing that. I managed to read all the stories assigned to me by Fifth Wednesday and even started a new book for pleasure. (It’s called Steps and Exes: A Novel of Family, and it’s by Laura Kalpakian. I’m enjoying it; you might too.) Meanwhile, I’m also reading a few others (you know, the ones in the car, in the bathroom, the
Simply Modern by Deanne Fitzpatrick. If you don’t have this book yet, get it!
And of course, just as in the old year, in the new year there has been hooking. After I finished my autumnal Tree of Life (okay, it’s not really finished, only the hooking’s done), I started a “new/old” rug. Someone gifted my guild (Adobe Wool Arts Guild, aka AWAG) with some old patterns last year, and even though I don’t really use patterns, I took one. It’s very traditional, but I wanted to make it more “me.” So I’m using t-shirts. So far it looks pretty cool according to guild members. I concur. Thoughts?
The start of my new/old rug being hooked in t-shirts. Anyone have an idea who might have created the pattern?
You might also remember that I mentioned finally getting my “big” Fiber Arts Fiesta project together as it’s due for jurying on March 1. I really do have a great idea of what I want to do. It’s a little mixed media, and it’s sitting in my brain. BUT, I’ve realized that I’m running low on time what with a lot on my plate, so that one’s going on the back burner. I’ll enter the rug above for sure, maybe something else I did last year too. AND…
An updated “Tynan” with a second eye. though it undoubtedly still needs some tweaking.
Here’s a slightly updated Tynan. He’s my dog that I started back in May when Cheryl Bollenbach was here “classing up” AWAG. I meant with all my heart and soul to get back to him after High on Hooking stopped selling in 2016. Somehow that didn’t happen, and now AWAG’s made plans to have Cheryl back for another workshop come this May. Woohoo! HOWEVER, I certainly can’t have last year’s project unfinished when she returns, so last week I picked Tynan up again – slightly panicked, I admit, after all these months. We did okay, got the second eye in which was what really had my panties in a bunch. So, we’re on our way…
And if rug hooking wasn’t enough, I got a yen to do some crocheting over the holidays. Here’s what’s on the crochet hook right now (which is on the opposite side of my chair from the rug hook). It’s a child’s afghan; maybe we’ll be able to sell it this coming season. Regardless, it’s a nice diversion.
