end of summer Archives – HIGH ON HOOKING

Happy New Year! Shanah Tovah!

New Year's lithograph — You know that’s how we feel about 2020 and now 2021. Trade cards from the “New Years 1890 Cards” series (N227), a set of 50 cards issued in 1889-90 to promote Kinney Tobacco Company. (Metropolitan Museum of Art; in the public domain)

Happy New Year to all of our Jewish friends! And to everyone else as well – more about that below.

High on Hooking is headed up to Santa Fe again the first weekend of October. Because it’s more fun to play with others, Cathy and I will again share a booth up at the Harvest Festival at Las Golondrinas. Amazingly, I’ve never been there, but everyone says it’s a wonderful place the visit. Being from New England, I figure it’s kind of like Sturbridge Village or Plimouth. (Never ever fall for that Plymouth Rock thing!) Perhaps you’d like to check the Harvest Festival and the hooked art out too…on October 2 and 3, of course.

El Rancho de las Golondrinas is a living history museum located on 200 acres in a rural farming valley just south of Santa Fe, New Mexico. The Museum, dedicated to the history, heritage and culture of 18th and 19th century New Mexico, opened in 1972. Original colonial buildings on the site date from the early 1700s. In addition, historic buildings from other parts of northern New Mexico have been reconstructed at Las Golondrinas. Villagers clothed in the styles of the times show how life was lived on the frontier in early New Mexico. Special festivals and weekend events offer visitors an in-depth look into the celebrations, music, dance and many other aspects of life in the Spanish, Mexican and Territorial periods of the Southwest.

I’m not gonna lie, the last two vendings weren’t particularly lucrative. Between Covid and logistics and Covid… Someday maybe we’ll get back to some kind of normal. Someday…

In the meantime, there’s plenty to keep us busy. For instance, there are always a rug or three to hook and projects to crochet. There are classes to prep. (Remember that I’ve added a session to WW3 on October 23!) And I need to get ready for an improv hand-quilting workshop with Heidi Parkes. Unfortunately, I’m in another class the exact same time Heidi’s runs, but she’s taping it, so I’ll use the video. Not quite the same, but for 50 bucks, I’m not complaining, especially for one of her classes. More on that later.

In other news, next week we’ll be looking at four new walls. Keep your eyes on the Instagram and Facebook feeds for that. Hoping it’s good for my journaling/sketching practice which need a jump start. And hiking and just getting away from…people.

There’s a LOT going on these days. So much so that I’ve really got to post more. And I will when I get the chance. A hint: Next June, look for HoH in Tennessee! (More on that later too.)

Lastly – besides the pic of the boys and WHAT’S ON THE FRAME – for me, while I’m not Jewish, September’s always been about the NEW YEAR as much as January 1. If you have kids or you were a kid, you understand. But now that Tom and I are on our own and summer in the desert isn’t even close to ending come August 31, the school year isn’t really a thing for us. And yet, September, maybe because it’s such a time of change (or at least potential change), marks a passage for me much as New Year’s does. It’s time to think about winter and being indoors more and how we’ll pass that time. It’s about taking stock and considering how we’ll face the future. But it’s definitely forward-thinking, not sad. It’s about potential.

Bowyn and Tynan bid you all a HAPPY NEW YEAR! Make the best of it. We intend to. This rug is hooked with all reclaimed t-shirts on monk’s cloth. If you want to try hooking with old t-shirts, check out my WW3 class.)

How about you? Do you see September as a “new year” or is it just bittersweet as we say goodbye to sun and warm weather? (Which one starts to really look at differently living in the desert, let me tell you!)

Will you be at Mountainair’s Sunflower Festival Saturday?

Dog with hooked sunflower wall hangings. — **Bowyn will be sad if he doesn’t get to meet you at Saturday’s Sunflower Festival.**

Unfortunately, last weekend’s textile art sale in Santa Fe was a bit of a logistical bust. But is it really a loss when you spend time hanging with a bunch of other talented fiber artists here in New Mexico or anywhere. NO! Fortunately, Cathy, my partner in crime, and I have the Sunflower Festival in just a few days. It’s always a fun time what with the arts, the music, the food… And Mountainair is a cool, little mountain town, very BIG sky country.

As you can see, I’m ready for the Sunflower Festival. Sunflowers are truly one of my favorite flowers, and if you’ve been following me for at least a year, you know that I like to hook some version of them annually. This year I went small, three wall hangings. And instead of keeping it all t-shirt all the time, I mixed it up. Each one has some amount of t-shirt, bed sheet, wool strips, and wool yarn. The variegated backgrounds were dyed by my own little hands during my “retreat week” back in June. Oh, and I included itty-bitty glass seed beads in the – what else? – sunflower seed heads!

Sunflower wall hanging. (Old t-shirts and bed sheets; wool strips and yarn; glass seed beads.)

It’s the end of summer here in New Mexico, and while the sunflowers are blooming and it’s still warm, you can see that fall’s on its way. Kids have been in school a couple of weeks. (Being from the East Coast, that’s still weird for me.) Already I’ve spied some turning leaves here and there. The Hatch chiles are roasting in the grocery store parking lots. That heavenly aroma!

Fall is a looking forward time for me. How to change up the house decor – pumpkins and candles, of course. The holidays! We just rented a house for a week’s vacation in Arizona (which lets us be self-sufficient in this unnecessarily continued time of Covid, but I digress). New rugs and other textile projects. Workshops.

On that workshop note, I want to remind everyone that In the Studio Workshop Week 3 will be here in two months. Less than that, actually. I’ll be teaching two sessions of Hooking with T-Shirts. The first will be Saturday, October 23. There are a few places still open in each class, so if you’re interested, email me at Laura@highonhooking.com. Some workshops are full but may have a waiting list available. Others still have room. Just contact the teacher of the class you’re interested in.

Lastly, a gentle reminder. The rug hooking week at Sauder Village just wrapped up. Trolling Facebook, I’ve seen wonderful photos of the gorgeous rugs that were on display. One thing, though, that I noticed about many of the posts was the lack of attribution. We need to remember that when we post pics of others’ artwork, we need to give the artists their due and provide their names. An easy way to get that info is to take a quick pic of the little card that’s invariably right next to or just below the rug, painting, quilt, or other piece of art you’re photographing. Then you’ll have everything together when you go to share the art porn.

As summer winds down here in the northern hemisphere, what plans are you making in order to really appreciate and enjoy the autumn? Maybe you’ll head out to Mountainair!

HIGH ON HOOKING

Tag: end of summer

Happy New Year – celebrate at the Harvest Festival!