Rugs on the frame are the thing this week, peeps. We’re busy, busy, busy. Not only is Christmas coming, and the tree’s not finished, but a student will be here Wednesday and Friday too. Then tomorrow I’m at a friend’s for a day of dyeing wool for my friendship rug (more on that later). Okay, Cathywill be doing more of the dyeing while her five new puppies distract Melinda and me. Who can resist baby dogs??? No worries, I’ll take some pics. Maybe even a couple of the wool-dyeing.
Are you ready for the holidays? Have time to work on your rugs? How do you feed your creativity during this often frenetic time of year???
Tynan brings you the “rugs on the frame this week.” Despite being sick – I’m only feeling truly human today, thank you – I managed to do some work on both “Kleeful” and the “Big Boucherouite” last week. The latter is off the Anderson frame because it became a pain in the neck to use. One leg pulled out from the base, and one side wouldn’t keep the rug as tight as I need. So, it’s onto the Puritanwe go. Bet that’ll be fun when I get to the middle…
Back to Bordeaux for another week and talking cool statues and sculpture.
Whether you hook rugs or draw or paint or in any way create “stuff,” you’re always on the lookout for other art that just might provide you with some inspiration. At least you should be. In theory. And given that we’re all carrying automatic copying machines around with us (in the form of our phones), there’s really no excuse for not making “graven images” of the things that call to us.
Okay, I admit that I often forget to jot down the artist info or even the name of some of the artworks I see when I’m out and about, but not in a museum or gallery with an identification sign conveniently placed near the object. I had to Google “large head sculpture in Bordeaux” to find out the info above. Enjoy!
That first night walking about the city, we came across the “Monument aux Girondins,” a monument/fountain created to memorialize the local heroes of the French Revolution. The various scenes portrayed seemed almost real in the dark and jet lag after traveling so many hours to get there.
Look at me pondering on how we shall take down that aristocracy and eat their cake.Why, yes, I do see you pondering what this will mean for our future. Do you think that their wardrobes will contain something we can wear? I mean, better than these bedsheets.
I am a mighty steed and have no need for stupid clothing. I am afraid, however, that I have caught a serious head cold.
Forget the Revolution! I fear that we’ve stumbled onto the set of “Pirates of the Caribbean.” Save us, Johnny Depp!
Sorry, sorry! It was the jet lag like I said.
Meanwhile back to real life. These guys were in l’Eglise Collegiale de Saint-Emilion. It’s still a working church though not a monastery any more. Interesting fact we learned: Sincethe Revolution, the Catholic Church no longer owns any of the churches and other buildings in France. It only uses and administers them. Because of such dwindling attendance at Masses in the last decades, the churches do not receive much in the way of collections and support for these marvelous buildings. It’s up to the cities and government to take care of them. It also explains why you can roam at will through them; they are truly tourist sites.
These guys were in the Eglise Collegiale de Saint-Emilion. Never saw anything like them in any of the Catholic churches that I’ve belonged to.
And then there were the carvings in the wall of a wine cellar beneath the medieval village of Saint-Emilion. Who knows when they happened or who made them?
Mon faux-pas! My bad! I neglected to write down the name of the winery who owns this most excellent cellar.
Oops! Sorry about that, Tom. You’re definitely NOT one of the statues, especially carrying those two bottles of wine we purchased.
Okay, this is my most favorite image of the whole trip. I’m assuming it’s Dionysus. I will hook this rug! And I promise that purple will fit in with him somehow.It is all about the grapes in Bordeaux. This is a BIG flower pot.I shall peel these grapes for you, mon cher. Mais bien sûr, we must have another glass of wine.
Okay, okay, I’ll stop now. Instead we’ll leave the statues and the trip behind for this week and head back into reality…
Tynan brings you this week’s “what’s on the frame.” Hm, looks very primitive doesn’t it? Not like what I usually hook. And yet, and yet… More next week!
Tynan putting on his best face. Looking good, man! He’s bringing you one of the rugs “on the frame” for this week. “Australian Welcome” is just about done; there are just 12 more little triangles to color in. For some reason this rug seems to have taken forever!
Hey, it’s me Tynan! I’m back again. She couldn’t come up with a good topic for this week’s blog,so she put it on me. Thanks for the favor, Mistress. Not! As if I just have a ready-made post just sitting around my in dog-bed. I’ll take some advance warning next time, sister!
Things haven’t changed much since I last wrote. My fur is still a problem. We live in New Mexico. Sure, it’s high desert, not as bad as Pheonix or Tucson where they close the airports when the tarmac melts. (How is that a real thing???) But Albuquerque is nonetheless in a freaking desert. It’s been in the mid and high 90s for a few weeks, and they still haven’t taken me to the groomers. Again. A long walk that they took me on one morning a week or two ago almost killed me. Thank God for Starbucks! The master, he goes in to buy our refreshments. Leaves me to wait with the mistress. After a l-o-n-g time – do they not see my tongue hanging our of my mouth? – he comes back out with: 1) an iced coffee for himself; 2) a white iced tea for her, and 3) a cup of ice water! What? Not only is it not the iced caramel machiatto that I requested, it’s a cup of water. Just water. No whipped cream, no caramel drizzled on top, no nothing. Poo! Blech! And have you ever seen a dog try to drink from a cup? Not the easiest thing to do. My swollen, over-heated tongue loses half of the liquid while she holds the cup in front of me. At least she went in and had the cup refilled. Thank God for small, miniscule, itty-bitty favors.
Just look at all the fur on me! I wish she’d put the ceiling fan on high. And the AC even higher. This High on Hooking Dog deserves more respect. And a damn haircut!
Not that I want to bore your with my grievances, but they’ve been promising me that we’d go hiking all spring-into-summer. And yet, and yet, we haven’t done any hiking. First there was her big RA flare-up, then he had to one-up her with a big, old gout attack. Both feet. I did kind of feel sorry for him. No walking really for weeks with me and the mistress. But he’s feeling much better now. Finally talked to a doctor, and she’s getting by enough, but are we going hiking, preferably somewhere cooler, like up the Sandiasor to Nambe Falls where we could even get wet? No, not at all. And now that this stupid New Mexico drought had gotten so bad, they’ve closed all the national and state forests and such. Didn’t want to, but people are stupid with campfires and cigarettes, and forest fires are a real thing here. So, we’re sh… out of luck. What’s a dog to do but lie on the bed in the air conditioned air and under the ceiling fan…
I’ll tell you though, there’s a definite bright spot in this hot, summery, New Mexican dog’s life.
Sorry, couldn’t find a pic of my new best friend Darlene, but here’s one of her rugs. Ask her who the designer was. I’m a dog, not a rug hooker.
Vacation’s coming! Yesiree! Yep, the humans are going on vacation in August, the two of them alone on a river cruise. (Can’t wait to hear how they resolve the whole problem of her light sleeping and his industrial snoring. If you have any ideas, write’em down in the comment section below.) Me, I was supposed to go to one of those doggy “resorts” – resort, my ass! – but one of my lovely hooking ladies – Darlene – and Rex her husband have offered to let me bunk at their place. You should see it: Trees and real grass! Not that fake putting green like we have here. I burn my pads on it! Their yard’s bigger than ours too. Lots of places to sniff out geckos and rabbits. And to do my business in private, if you get my drift. Best of all is their liberal offerings of treats. One time I was there and Rex brings me out a big-ass bowl of lunch. Lunch! Mistress up and tells him, Oh, Tynan doesn’t eat lunch, Rex. Bitch queered my action. Still, I got a half of that bowl and some other treats from Mary, another one of my hooking babes. She lives near Darlene and Rex and might take me for a walk or something that week. She has a good house too. Lots of birds; always an excellent thing. I might catch one one day. If I try a little harder. Maybe. When it’s not so warm.
That’s my story. Today. Tune in again to see if she lets me have the laptop again. Hope you’re
No. it’s not too exciting. Yet! Slowly working our way around the perimeter of the “Big Boucherouite.” Hoping to have more time to work on it in the coming month. Remember that it’s got a due date – March 1 – in order to enter it into next year’s Fiber Arts Fiesta here in Albuquerque. Check out the into here. Can enter starting January 1. You don’t have to be local!
cooler than I am. Or at least have good AC and a haircut.
Tynan, the High on Hooking Dog
Notes from Laura:
Tynan has a haircut scheduled for later today. he’s just not aware of it. He’s not usually too excited to go there, though it’s not as bad as going to the V-E-T.
Apparently, Nambe Falls is open, and they allow dogs. We’ll try to get up that way later this week. Don’t tell the High on Hooking Dog, though. It’ll be a surprise.
Dudes and dudettes, it’s me again, Tynan the High of Hooking Welsh springer spaniel! She let me write another post.
Let me start by saying how much I love my ladies. No, not the mistress. Okay, I love her too, but she’s family. You know, overly familiar. No, I love her friends, the ones who come here to hook once in a while. Better, some of them even let me go to their houses! My house is fine, but again, overly familiar. Hey, I’m ten now. I need stimulation so I don’t go all geriatric.
So, today’s Wednesday, the day the mistress usually gets her blog out. This week, though, she is COMPLETELY unprepared, very distracted. “I’ve got another show in a week and a half. Have to finish one table runner/wall-hanging and then hook another. All by next Friday!” If you’re not in the loop, she and Cathy Kelly (one of my lady friends) are vending at the Cinco de Mayo Folk Art Fest here in town on…May 5! Duh! Cinco de Mayo, get it? Whatever. She’s got to replace some sold merchandise and is spazzing out about it.
So, she and Cathy were visiting Ruth, another one of my ladies, this afternoon, and, apparently, the mistress bitched about the blog, thought about not posting this week when Ruth and Cathy made a fabulous suggestion. “What about having Tynan do it this week? He did such a bang-up job with the Pagosa Springs post. We’re sure he’d be happy to sub in for you again.” (You can see why I love them. They get me.) So, here I am.
Because she caught me by surprise and has me on a deadline, I suppose I’ll just fill you in on my general activities lately. Let’s see.
A pic of me – Tynan – one fall in my beautiful Bosque where I can run and sniff at will. (Unless the mistress sees a coyote who might eat me for second breakfast.)
Well, since the mistress finally got over her allergy phobia, and there’s less juniper in the air, we’ve been walking the Bosquemore. I’ve lost a few pounds which was more apparent when they took me to the groomer – like weeks late! Sure, this isn’t Phoenix, but it’s been pretty freakin’ warm here this spring. Like the mistress, I prefer to keep my fur short. The master, he hates that, especially on her, but I prefer not to be dragged into their petty marital spats.
Had my rattle snake retest Sunday. The idiots were so sure that I would fail. What? She never told you about the rattle snake training? Yeah, this is ostensibly a rug hooking blog, but I’m the High on Hooking Dog; pretty much the whole marketing concept. She should’ve at least mentioned it. I will.
Almost looks innocent, doesn’t it. Like a walk in the park. Except that I NEVER wear a neon collar. And that guy is directing us toward… (Photo by Thomas Mauter of the Central New Mexico Brittany Club.)
Two years ago March, she thinks it a fine idea to 1) inject me with actual rattle snake venom (the vet called it a “vaccine“) and 2) enroll us in rattle snake avoidance training. For #1 I think I’m going on a nice car ride, and I end up at the vet’s. I hate the vet. I hate shots. I showed her, I peed on the vet’s floor. For #2, again I think I’m going for a car ride, an adventure even as it took a while to get to the middle of nowhere somewhere way west of here. A place where you know they buried bodies in Breaking Bad. Instead I find a guy who puts a shock collar on me and marches me up to a f-ing testy rattle snake. When the damn serpent strikes at me – yes, the idiots really put me through this – the guy puts an lightning bolt through me. I swear I am NOT making this up. Now I think that somehow I’m actually in Breaking Bad, that somehow I got on Walter White’s bad side. “Walk it off,” they tell me. And never go near a rattle snake again. Not a problem, I think.
Do I look happy to have met that rattle snake? Do I? (Photo by Thomas Mauter of the Central New Mexico Brittany Club.)
Of course, my skin was smelling much like barbecue by then. A half-hour goes by. I wonder why we don’t leave. The mistress says, “Come on, man, let’s walk over here.” Okay, maybe the car’s that way. I don’t know, my brain’s are still scrambled. We walk into the brush; she tugs on the leash, “this way.” I try to focus and I see…that f-ing snake! Feet don’t fail me now! I go running the other way. Back on the dirt road they tell me what a good dog I am. Freak that shit! Who drags their ever faithful canine friend out into the middle of nowhere to torture him with a snake and electricity? Really, who does that?
I’d finally forgotten all about that episode till this past weekend. It started innocently enough. “Let’s go for a ride, Tynan!” I bound into the car. The miles go by; we leave Albuquerque. Rio Rancho goes by. We’re going west. And just like that we’re back two years, in exactly the same spot. Other dogs are there. I try to warn them, but the idiots keep me off to the side. Suddenly, Shock Collar Guy is there talking. “I am going to hurt your dogs…” He holds up a collar. By now I’m not listening. What fresh hell does he have planned? Not much time to think; the mistress is pulling me towards the brush. I try to fight back, but there are other dog smells compelling me into the bushes. And I’ve not peed here yet, enlarged my own social network. Like a newborn lamb I follow. “Take the lead, Tynan.” Again, I can’t help myself. I love being first on the trail when we hike! Things look good, nothing out of the ordinary. And then I hear something familiar. I smell it too. She pulls on the leash. “This way, bud.” Against my own instincts I move in that direction. Right into the path of…the rattle snake!
Needless to say, I did not stay around. Dragged her ass right back to the dirt road and all the way to the car. Again with the “good dog” to soothe me. Bite me, I told them as I settled into the back seat. If I’m to believe them, they’ll never take me to that place again. “We’ll make it up to you,” she said. Right. “How about going to the park now. The one with trees and nice, green grass.” I cocked my ears. I love real grass. We only have that stupid fake turf in the back yard. “Okay,” I told them.
The Thimbleweeds 2018 Great Outdoor Quilt Show in Rio Rancho. I did NOT pee on any of the quilts.
What a maroon I was. Sure, we went to the park. Because it was the annual quilt show put on by the Thimbleweed Quilters. Even the master fell for it. Some day we’ll get away from all of this stupid fiber art stuff. Till then, though, I’m still stuck here as the High on Hooking Dog.
Yet again, I, Tynan, present “What’s on the frame this week.” The mistress is desperate to finish this table runner/wall-hanging so that she can start another one to be ready for the Cinco de Mayo Folk Art Fest in Albuquerque next week. Might we see you there?
Snow in March: Been there, done that. This is a pic of our old house in Franklin, Massachusetts. Okay, this was in December, but you get the idea. I never took pics of March snow. By then it wasn’t welcome.
So, the whole country is watching the east coast for a second time this late winter / early spring day. I know what I’m talking about when I say that two nor’easters in one week is a big, old bitch. See, weather like that is one of the MAJOR reasons Tom and I picked up in 2015 and moved to New Mexico. From Massachusetts. Yeah, we’re both native New Englanders, but we got tired of the winters.
Cheery daffodils yelled “SPRING” and welcomed me to Heritage Farm yesterday.
Don’t get me wrong, snow’s pretty and fun to play in. I don’t even mind shoveling (now and again; we had a snow blower). BUT that self-same snow is only lovely for a day or so, then it gets all nasty and brownish-gray. Out here in Albuquerque we can drive forty minutes around the Sandia Mountains and visit snow. The dog loves it.Then we get back in our car and head home where this winter it’s been mostly in the 50s and 60s. Hey, that’s not typical, and because we’ve had very little snow in the mountains, we’re back in a drought situation. Which means that there’ll be a BAD fire season. (We won’t be affected by that, but I have friends who most definitely will be.) Don’t even start me on the juniper poison pollen that’s been out since January. It’s something we never even considered when we chose a new home.
Nonetheless, yesterday a few of us from the guild were doing our usual gig demo-ing rug hooking at Albuquerque’s Botanic Garden, part of the BioPark. (We’re there the 1st and 4th Tuesdays each month except June and July when they kick us out for summer kid programs.) There was a good breeze going, and temps were in the low 50s (oddly enough lower than the norm), so it was a slow day in the park. I figure folks are waiting till it hits 70 tomorrow and Friday.
A shot of the Heritage Farm farmhouse. The tulips are sucking up the sunshine. It’ll truely be spring when we go back on the 27th.
It was a good time to wander outside and look for spring.
AWAG demos at the Rio Grande Heritage Farm, a section of the Botanic Garden. The farm’s a reproduction representing a New Mexican farm circa somewhere between 1925 and 1935. We hang in the farmhouse or out on the porch in rocking chairs when it’s nice. Out back there’s an apple orchard. They’ve got a vineyard too! And then there’s the barn with its requisite farm animals. Fun times, though not with one of the sheep yesterday. 🙁
The chicks and hens are enjoying the warmth. See the green in her center?
I thought I’d share some of the signs of early spring at “our” farm. Enjoy!
Fresh chives! Now all I need is a baked potato.
One of the churro sheep(I think it’s one of the churros) is having NOTHING to do with me. She (?) posed this way. Cold!
The turkey was far more accommodating.
Goats are by far the friendliest of the farm animals.Then the goat got his (???) churro buddy to pose. Nice!
The leaves were just coming out on the lilac. (I was so happy to find lilacs out here. There’s even one in our yard. Their scent says SPRING’S ARRIVED.)
The Heritage Farm barn at Albuquerque’s BioPark. Looks like a movie set, no? If you get a chance, come visit. The Botanic Garden’s been rated one of the best in the country.
Tynan’s back! He very enthusiastically presents (given the presence of the doggie beef jerky treat) this week’s “What’s on the frame.” It’ll be a happy sunflower table runner hooked in upcycled t-shirt that’ll be available at the Albuquerque Recycled Art Fair April 14 and 15. Will we see you there?
Meanwhile back at the Salamy homestead, Tynan’s back with “What’s on the frame.”
