Mary Ramsey, AWAG president, indoctrinating, I mean, sharing rug hooking, specifically her “Chicken Cha,” with visitors to Heritage Farm in Albuquerque’s Botanic Garden.
Where’s High on Hooking? Like Waldo we could be almost anywhere. Though yesterday we were with other members of the Adobe Wool Arts Guild (AWAG) at Albuquerque’s BioPark for our twice monthly demo gig. After last week’s news, though, we really could be almost anywhere.in the coming months.
Like Lauren at Rugs and Pugs, last week was spent suffering through all kinds of nasty sinus issues and such. And we’re still on the mend! But life looked a hell of a lot better when one day’s email brought news of High on Hooking being juried into Albuquerque’s 8th Annual Recycled Art Fair. That’s the last weekend of April and conveniently located only a couple of miles down the road from my house at the Open Space Visitor Center. Besides vendors, there will be food, live music, and all kinds of good stuff.
Another email finally green-lighted me into this year’s Rail Yard’s Market downtown. Woohoo! I loved doing the market last year: tasty food, music, fabulous people-watching, and the chance to spread the gospel of rug hooking to new believers.
There are other irons in the fire. AWAG’s got Cheryl Bollenbach motoring down from Colorado to teach another class in early May. Fiber Arts Fiesta comes up a couple of weeks later. Lots of work going on with that! (It being my first Fiesta ever – having moved here only a year and a half ago – I feel like I’m about to be hit by a beautiful and handmade freight train. A freight train nonetheless.) Oh, we’ve got company coming twice! in May before Fiesta starts.
Life’s busy and that’s a really good thing. I mean, who wants to be bored? Not me. I can play “Where’s High on Hooking” all year long.
Keeping busy: This is a problem that you’re glad to have.
–American actor Michael Winslow
Tynan presents this week’s “Current Rug.” Actually, there are three on the frame, all mug rugs as we get ready for the 2017 selling season. No, he’s not particularly interested in the mats; Tom was in the kitchen making “food” sounds. That was soooo much more compelling.
It’s officially fall, and the pumpkins are popping even here in New Mexico. Along with them come the roasting chiles, the mums, and Halloween costumes and candy in stores (we’re not even gonna talk about the Christmas shit stuff I saw in Walmart yesterday). While I love summer and warm weather, I won’t deny my affinity for most things autumn: cooler temperatures, pumpkins (of course!), candles, sweaters, fires (even if out here they’re usually gas-fueled rather than wood), exchanging flip-flops for my kick-ass, little booties, and so on.
“Little Pumpkin”; 10″x10″; all wool and even llama (not one t-shirt loop!)
Like New England, New Mexico holds off till fall to show its best self. In Albuquerque we may not get the range of foliage colors quite like we had in Massachusetts, but the yellows and golds of the cottonwoods and aspens stand out brilliantly against the almost daily blue-blue sky. And there’s little chance that a nasty, wind-driven rainstorm (worse, an ice storm!) will strip the leaves off the trees one night while we sleep.
This week I’m finishing up three mug rugs to sell Sunday at my final Rail Yards date for the year. (Until December 11’s Holiday Market, that is, but more on that later.) Two are autumnal in nature, one being a pumpkin. There are two other pumpkins in my inventory, and I’m hoping that at least a couple of them find new homes this coming weekend.
Okay, this little guy is all t-shirt too. I can’t help myself. He’s 6″x6″.
No blog next week; we’ve got my sister-in-law coming into town just in time for Albuquerque’s Balloon Fiesta. Tom and I are looking forward to going to a “Glow” one evening which is when they fire up some of the balloons after it gets dark. They don’t go anywhere (because flying in the dark would be a CRAZY thing to do), but they look pretty…glowing. Hopefully, pics will come out so that I can share them here.
What do you look forward to most when cold weather and fall finally come calling? Share your pumpkins on High on Hooking’s Facebook page.
This is what I’m currently calling the “midnight tree” rug. It’s about 28 inches in diameter. I’m hooking with bed sheets and t-shirts this time. (And, yes, I’m missing a nail on my left big toe.)
The title should probably read “What’s on the frame this very minute?” It would be more accurate. I started a pretty large rug last Tuesday. Then came yesterday, one of my mornings at Albuquerque’s Rail Yards Market. A woman and her husband spent some time in my booth admiring a few of the rugs; then they were off. No big deal. It happens like that almost all the time. Except…they came back. And bought two mug rug sets and a wall hanging. Woohoo! The only downside is that I’m now down to two mug rug sets, and I still have another weekend to go. (Then I’ll take a break from vending till December’s special holiday market.)
Consequently, while I’m enjoying working on the new “midnight tree” rug, as soon as I draw up a couple of mug rugs (like ASAP – this afternoon!), I’ll have to kick it’s butt off the frame. Of course, if that’s my biggest hooking problem, I must be doing something right.
Set and have a cup of tea? “Autumn’s Sunflower” there on the left sold at the Rail Yards Market Sunday. “Petro Sun” is still available.
The rug that generates the most talk when folks come into my booth at the Rail Yards Market is the one I call “Welcome to New Mexico.” Many of you already know its story; that I started it right before I left Massachusetts late last July to move to Albuquerque. In my mind I’d work on it while the child and I crossed the country on our new adventure. I pictured myself contentedly hooking in motels each night as I decompressed after a day of driving. That didn’t happen once, not even when the kid spontaneously combusted in Scranton, Pennsylvania, when she thought her cell phone died. (I swear that I left at least a year of my life on the side of the highway there…)
No, I didn’t hook at all on the road. First of all, it was difficult just getting our things in and out of my Honda Fit each day. If you haven’t seen one, it’s a tiny car, and I’d packed it to the gills. Truthfully, it was enough every evening to find some dinner, catch up with important emails, call Tom (who was still back in Mass waiting for the movers), and brush my teeth before I fell asleep over my magazines.
The sanity-saving, hit-or-miss rug.
Hence, I started the rug in earnest when the kid and I arrived at the house we were renting till we found our New Mexican castle. (Therapy!) It was designed to be a rug of convenience in that I was using t-shirts in the colors of the high desert and no set design. Old t-shirts in reds, browns, greens, and such are pretty ubiquitous; better, I’d found that Albuquerque had Savers stores. Savers has for years been my thrift shop of choice for used clothing to deconstruct and then hook with.
The hooking was done right quick – by the beginning of September. The finishing would have to wait until we moved (again) and I had more table room. To me it was an alright rug; it served its purpose, certainly, but I didn’t love it. Imagine my surprise when I put it up for sale at the Rail Yards this June. It was the mat that everyone pointed to when they perused my stuff. “Love that!” “Look, it’s got a Zia!” Even, “Hey, Sue, you should buy this one for your office.”
An aside: For those who don’t know about the Zia sun symbol, here is a description from Pueblo of Zia:
The Zia logo is used by the state of New Mexico on both the flag and license plates.
The symbol originated with the Indians of Zia Pueblo in ancient times. It’s design reflects their tribal philosophy, with its wealth of pantheistic spiritualism teaching the basic harmony of all things in the universe. (http://zia.com/home/zia_info.html)
Maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised by its popularity. Zia suns are all over the place here: on our license plates, on t-shirts, worked into company logos, and so on. Silly me for thinking it would be seen as touristy or, at best, kind of kitschy. I mean, I’m from New England, but I didn’t have photos of sailboats or lobster statues throughout my colonial home.
A few weeks back a woman came through my booth; she had a marketing background and did a lot of work with arts and/or craft shows. The first thing she told me (after saying that she loved my work, that is) was that I needed to have more Zias. that people would eat them up. And that my mug rug concept should be “expanded,” that I should hook a larger rug, big enough to hold four mugs. That “if I hook it, they will come.” (And, concomitantly, they will pay more.)
What the hell, I thought, Let’s try it. Tom and I ran to Savers a couple of days later (if I go on Tuesdays, he gets me a senior discount of 30%!). There weren’t four matching mugs that would fit the New Mexican bill, but I did find two colored turquoise. Fine, we’d start small-ish. Below is what I came up with (minus one mug for the pic).
“Coffee for Two, NM Style” really came with two mugs. Sold!
Fast-forward to this past Sunday. Everyone loves the “Welcome to New Mexico” rug, but, of course, no one wants to pay for it. (I know the owner-to-be is out there…) Lady comes in, is looking for a gift for her mother. Takes her a while to decide on one with the “perfect” colors that will match her mom’s home. I realize suddenly that I don’t have my Square, that I left it in the car. Tom makes a run for it. Lady walks around the market with her husband while we wait. Tom and she arrive back at the same time. I start to input the info into Square. “Wait!” she says excitedly. “Can I have this one instead? I think she’ll really love this one.” The Zia rug with its matching mugs is $10 more. Of course, you can!
So, I’m about to start making a lot more New Mexican-themed rugs and mats. That’s okay. I find it an interesting challenge to come up with different designs that don’t bore me, that have some panache beyond the typical tourist crap you find in Old Town Albuquerque. But I’m not one to design according to others’ preferences – unless they’re paying for a custom rug, of course. Fortunately, these will tend to be smaller rugs. For myself and my own “artistic sense,” I usually have another rug running, something that’s less work and more…therapy. Right now that’s a bedsheet rug. Pictures will soon be available.
“Desert Gone Wild” is a rug that sold two weeks ago. Color, for me it’s all about the colors.
What about you? What do you like to hook? Landscapes? Geometrics? Portraits? Florals? Realistic versus stylized renderings? I know many love to do seasonal pieces. Me, I love pumpkins and other things fall, but I’m not a lover of Christmas rugs. It takes so long to make one, how can I put it out for six weeks at the most? Weigh in below!
One set of mugs and rugs that’s sold at the Railyards Market this summer.
Summer hooking New Mexican style is…busy! Mostly because I’m selling at Albuquerque’s Rail Yards Market so often. Then there’s a possible show in August that I may do with a friend. And let’s not forget the rugs that I’m coming up with in my head – for me! The Albuquerque Fiber Council’s Fiber Arts Fiesta isn’t until May of next year, but any rugs I submit have to be ready to go in March! Now’s the time to start baking those ideas.
Next mug and rug in the queue. I see bright colors with that black.
Mug rugs are selling best at the market. It’s not surprising; they’re pretty cheap – beginner’s rug buying – and I include a mug with them. They make nifty, little hostess gifts. Above is one that sold a couple of weeks ago. Let’s hope that the one I’m starting tonight sells just as quickly. You can see it to the left here; it’ll be done in t-shirts.
I can’t wait to see how these hook up.
After that, I’ll be doing a little experiment based on the bedsheet rugs. Check out these fat quarters I picked up just this morning in a local quilt shop – Hip Stitch. Sure sheets are nice, and I do love to up-cycle, but look at that batik! They’ll look fabulous with a tea cup and saucer I picked up at Savers.
Also on the frame this week, but not for much longer, is my current bedsheet rug. This one’s hooked into monks’ cloth rather than latch hook backing. Makes for a much tighter rug, though it takes longer to hook, certainly. It’s cute, though, and hefty enough for floor use.
My current bed sheet rug. I’m trying to be “un-fussy,” as someone put it in another blog, by making up the rectangles as I go. Only rule: None of the rectangles can look alike. “Summertime and the hooking is easy…”
In other news, let me first apologize for the quality of my pics lately. I finally realized that something was really wrong with the camera on my phone, a phone just purchased four months ago. I had Tom look at it after I tried to clean it yet again and wouldn’t you know it, it wasn’t dirty; it was scratched clear to hell! I grabbed his phone – same make and model, a little older even – and took a photo. Perfectly clear! We think I received a bad one. What are you gonna do? A new phone’s on order. We’ll make a close inspection of its camera when it comes in. Next week’s blog should have better pictures, though, in the meantime I’m using hubby’s camera. (See how much clearer the second, third , and fourth pics are above?)
Do you take a summer break from hooking and wool? Take up another activity? Or do you crank up the AC and loop away?
