There’s plenty on the frame today. And on the dining room table too! Am up to my eyeballs in work: 1) finishing a bedsheet rug and 2) going through inventory and re-tagging in order to get ready for Albuquerque’s Rail Yards Market starting (for me) June 5. Then there are the two or three small mats that I have to finish off. If you have a couple of hours and feel like sewing some, give a yell!
Wha’s on your frame today?
Experimenting. I’ve got plenty to do this week, still I find myself trying something new. Last
Thursday, I started a new rug. One on latch hook backing. Made out of old sheets. This re-cycling – or the more virtuous sounding “up-cycling” – thing has really grabbed me. I’m hoping it’ll grab buyers too when I start selling at the Rail Yard Market in June. Rag rugs are in vogue these days, you know.
I’ve included a couple of pics to show how it’s going. The design is simple, paisley-like, as I needed to see how the sheets would hook up before I went crazy. The strips are about a half-inch wide. No need for real precision here. Savers (a used goods store that I frequent) provided the sheets. I’m hoping to find brighter colors next time, though these are fairly desert-esque. That’s fitting for here in Albuquerque.
I’ve sleeved and handed over “Ribbons Over Albuquerque” to the “Colors of the Southwest” fiber arts exhibit. It runs this weekend at the Garden Center (in itself a very cool place to visit) here in town. I’m looking forward to the show’s opening Friday evening along with the artists’ reception. Saturday, I’ve been tasked with demonstrating. That means that I need to get on the stick and finish prepping my next piece. (I figured I’d show them rug hooking in its more traditional form, so I’m leaving the sheets at home. And using t-shirts. 😉 ) Because I sew my binding on before I hook, there’s a needle and some thread in my immediate future.
Before I head back to that mat, though, I need a favor. Yesterday I created a Facebook page for my Adobe Wool Arts guild here in Albuquerque. It’ll let us share what’s going on in the guild as well as communicate with all the hookers out there in cyberspace. If you’d be so kind as to give us a looksie at https://www.facebook.com/AdobeWoolArts/, we’d be ever so grateful. Feel free to comment, share, educate, whatever. And then LIKE us. We love meeting new friends.
How much experimenting do you do when you hook?
Not much time to post this week. The “Colors of the Southwest” project I’ve been telling you about is due Monday for jurying. The hooking’s not done yet alone the finishing! This means working during the day, something I tend not to do unless it’s the NFL playoff season.(If you don’t know it already, I’m a BIG New England Patriots fan. As you can imagine, this is not a popular thing in Albuquerque’s Denver Broncos’ territory.)
The pic to the left shows that much of the hooking is actually done. Only the “bows” remain. Unlike the rest of the piece which is comprised of t-shirt strips, I’m creating them out of ribbon and/or cut up poly blouses so that they have a little of the shiny “bling” of a real bow.
Stay tuned; I promise to give more details about this rug and what it means to me when it’s finished. Meanwhile, working with the ribbons is shredding the crap out of my left thumb top, but there’s no time to spare. For now I’m rubbing Vaseline into it. Next week, I’ll give it a day or two off. The things we do for our art…
Lest you think my life’s all about suffering these days, I share our latest new home enhancement.
Instead of a pool, we decided to go with a smaller investment: the hot tub. It was installed last week, and we christened it Sunday. Thus far it’s excellent for muscles and joints achy from the trails, the treadmill, and rheumatoid arthritis. Though it’s not done anything for my thumb but dry it out more. I can live with that.
Remember, our door is always open to hookers and other friends visiting Albuquerque. Come rest your achy fingers and hands.
Do you suffer from osteo- or rheumatoid arthritis, carpal tunnel, something else? How does it affect your hooking? I’ve been fortunate in that my RA hasn’t targeted my hands as much as it has other joints. Please share here (or privately) what having a disease or other physical challenge means to your hooking and other pursuits. Are you like me, fearing that you might have to one day give up doing something you love? If there’s enough interest, maybe there’s an article to be written…
Since I had to make my monthly Target trip yesterday, I decided to combine it with a fiber arts show I read about in the Albuquerque Journal. Palette Contemporary Art and Craft is currently hosting the exhibit which features “textile paintings” by Katie Pasquini Masopust. One of these pieces to the right ran in the paper inducing me to visit the gallery and see her other pieces.
Katie is based north of here in Santa Fe – for now. Apparently, she’s getting ready to move to California. Too bad. As you can see, her quilts – not the kind you’d be putting on your bed! – look like paintings until you get right on top of them.
The exhibit describes her work as “textile paintings.” I wouldn’t disagree. Painted pieces of canvas are stitched into the quilt with other fabrics.
Today’s errands about town involved a visit with my rheumatologist who’s based at UNM Hospital. Imagine my happy surprise when Tom and I entered the clinic and found these on the wall:
I’d known that there was a tapestry show at the hospital, but I thought that I’d missed it. Certainly, had no idea it was in the clinic I use. (And if Tom had known it was there, I’m sure he wouldn’t have accompanied me to my appointment. Ha!)
Works represented several weavers.
I have to say that Albuquerque’s more than met my expectations regarding textiles and fiber arts. They’re all over the city, and their exposure’s only growing. Saturday afternoon I’m hoping to attend a talk by tapestry weaver Donna Loraine Contractor at a gallery in the city’s Old Town. If you follow my Facebook page, you’ll often see her work. Before that, on Friday, I attend my first meeting of Albuquerque’s Fiber Arts Council as my guild’s representative. Bring on the fiber art fiber art!
Do you go out of your way to see other types of fiber arts? Or maybe you DO other types of fiber arts? Either way, please share with us how textiles other than rug hooking influence your art. That’s a blog for another day.
It’s Tuesday, a perfect day for playing a little hooky. I know it’s also blog-duty day, but maybe we can fudge that a little in the name of unbelievably nice winter weather and creativity. Especially when I think of what I wrote last week vis à vis creativity and my re-burgeoning need to write.
This morning, while the kid was at work and the husband was out at some doctor’s appointment, I took up pen and paper and set forth to write fake stuff – fiction, that is – once more. I gave myself a prompt I’d collected (I keep them on my Pinterest page, if you’re interested) and wrote till I heard the garage chimes ringing that Tom was home. It was a good start. Tonight the journal comes out after the dinner dishes are cleared.
The afternoon hitting 60 degrees here in west Albuquerque (sorry to all those who might be finding their own climate a little chilly), after lunch Tom and the dog and I headed down to the Bosque (the forest along the Rio Grande) to check out the local wildlife. Got so warm, I had to take off my sweatshirt.
Tonight it’s back to pulling loops. My March 1 deadline to have this current piece done is quickly approaching, and there’s still some project infrastructure I haven’t figured out. Just trying to get the major hooking done first.
Tomorrow’s creative endeavor: Early this morning, before I sat down to write, I did my monthly-or-so coloring of the grays. I hate dying my hair. Hell, I haven’t even tackled dying the t-shirts I hook with. Tried a new shade. And changed to L’Oreal when I had been a Clairol kind of girl. Very bad idea. I’m a natural redhead. Or I used to be. Currently, I’m more Lucy meets a violet crayon; the box called the color it “Ruby Rush.” Yeah. Made a call back to Maurice in Rhode Island: “What do I do?!!!?” Then took a trip to Walgreens to pick up the old Clairol. Back to the dying board tomorrow.
How’s creativity going for you these days?