#RibbonRugJournal Archives – HIGH ON HOOKING

Summer’s been flying by, and I was gone for part of July. But the work of summer, first mentioned back in June – that’s been ongoing. Enjoy the project porn.

Project Porn, hooked rug — ABUNDANCE, the latest of the #happyrugseries rugs. Mixed fibers, many recycled. (15″x48″)

#happyrugseries
I started the #happyrugseries back at the end of last year so that I could concentrate on something other than all the overwhelmingly DOWNER news that we were (and continue to be) subject to. These pieces have to have a certain joy to them, most of which can be seen in their riot of colors. In June I finished a large-ish happy rug ABUNDANCE. She was hooked using a variety of fibers, mostly what I had on hand, in an “automatic” or stream of consciousness style. And, yes, she has holes!

New Mexico Cushion
In late June, Ruth and I finished New Mexico’s contribution to the USA50 project. You can find more about that HERE. It was a relief to get it into the mail and up to Canada. I could finally work on my own projects and start adding to the Etsy shop.

Project porn. New Mexico USA%) cushion. Design by Patricia lowden. — New Mexico’s contribution to the USA50 project. Design by Patricia Lowden. Hooed by Laura Salamy. All put together by Ruth Simpson. Thank you, ladies!

Retreat Week
You might remember that I claimed the last week in June for my personal retreat week after a class I was to teach at had to be postponed. I had a lot on tap for that week.

Write an article on 2020’s Ribbon Rug Journal. Check! It’s written, but I need to take some photographs and submit it. At least the words are done!

Project porn; hand-dyed yarn — Yarn destined for punching.

DYEING! I know, you don’t hear much about dyeing from me, especially given that I hook with so many old bed sheets and t-shirts which come in all sorts of vivid colors. Nonetheless, I’ve been planning to dye some wool yarn for quite a while. I’ll use the bulk of it to punch with or sell/share with punch needle rug hooking students when I can host an in-person class. Had a great time doing it and will definitely do some more.

Project Porn; kawandi quilt — My first Kawandi project. Quilt scraps and recycled linens.

Kawandi Quilting – It’s a form of kantha-like quilting. While I have plenty of friends who are quilters, I am not. At all. Mostly, I don’t like how much room it takes and that you need a machine. But I’ve always loved kantha quilts and stitching by hand is more to my liking. After doing some research online about what I might actually be able to make, I was happy to find these Indian quilts which are pieced together using scraps of fabrics. Another form of recycling – yay! I had plenty of quilt scraps from Ruth; plus there are all kinds of old sheets in my “stable” that I can hook with. But I wasn’t done: I have a lot of old cloth napkins that have seen better days. Cut everything up and…I had a quilt. Sure I made some errors, but I was pretty happy with it in the end.

Project porn; ecohooking — VOYAGE PLASTIQUE was hooked using plastic bags that might have otherwise made their way to the ocean.

#ECOHOOKING – Given all the wildfires, the melting tundras, violent storms, and ocean pollution, I decided to do my own little part and hook a piece with plastic bags that otherwise might have ended up caught in a tree. Having already hooked a larger such piece, I’d kept the most colorful bags I didn’t used. Despite the heavy environmental theme, I was hoping she might make some folks smile given her sunny disposition. It worked! Tom mailed VOYAGE PLASTIQUE off to her forever home in New Hampshire just this morning.

July travels
Last month Tom, Bowyn, and I saddled up the CR-V for a 2200-mile trip or so back East to see friends and family. (There were another 2200 miles to drive back, of course.) Tynan got a staycation with Ruth. Sitting in a car for several days does call for some handwork, and I was prepared.

Personal best crocheting project – I prefer not to hook in the car, but I will crochet. Before we left, I decided on a project that was NOT a shawl, my usual travel go-to. Nope, I searched and searched online for something.
Finished! “Easy crochet top down” by Modessa.

Some tops looked interesting, but I couldn’t deal with having to crochet up two identical halves. (Mostly because I doubt my ability to do that, especially on a distracting trip). I finally came upon the cool EASY (emphasis on easy) CROCHET TOP DOWN. Reading it, the syntax and directions are off a bit as the chick who created the pattern isn’t a native English speaker. If you choose to crochet the pattern, I’d advise that you watch the video. I did. Many times. Oh, and there’s not a lot of counting in this piece. A big bonus. BEST: I finished the top last week, and it even fits me. I’ll block it this week then post me wearing it on Instagram.
New rug – While I don’t hook in the car, if I’ve driven to my destination, I will hook when I get there. Usually more than I did on this particular journey. But before I left, I drew up a new pattern, sewed on my tape, and gathered up and stripped some old t-shirts. I find that hooking with t-shirts works best when I’m on the go. That wool allergy isn’t going anywhere, and bed sheets shed thread like the dickens.
Bowyn sharing the floor with the “travel” rug. He’s happy to be out of the car.

What’s on my plate at the moment
Since I like to crochet all patterns twice so that I know I’m proficient, that I didn’t just get lucky, I’m planning to do up the top in another color. It helped that JoAnn’s has a summer yarn clearance going on. (I spent a lovely hour there yesterday picking up some bamboo and hemp yarns. I hope to do a bag with the latter. All those colorful yarns; I couldn’t help myself.)

And because I have two sales coming up very soon, I decided to put the travel rug away and do a few small wall hangings. Sunflowers! I love sunflowers and try to hook at least one each year. Plus, one of the sales is the Sunflower Festival down in Mountainair, a mountain town south of Albuquerque.

Project porn - summer 2012. — Bowyn takes this chance to have a treat and bring you the sunflowers in this week’s WHAT’S ON THE FRAME.

All in all I’ve been pretty productive this summer. And there are still a few weeks left! Perhaps it’s a byproduct of the pandemic; I realize that I’ve become a little less social. I like having more time to myself to create, to concentrate on projects that I deem worthwhile, whether they’re for my shop or my own growth. The challenge will be how to keep at least some of that time for myself once the Delta variant disappears and we can move back out into the world for real.

Hope you’ve enjoyed the project porn. How has Covid affected your art practice?

“You are the boss of your rug.”

Linda Towle was the founder of the Adobe Wools Arts Guild, New Mexico’s only rug hooking guild. We miss you, Linda!

This is perhaps the anthem of the Adobe Wool Arts Guild of New Mexico of which I am the current president. You will hear it whenever any one of us is working a rug and asks the others for advice. That means you and anyone within hearing distance will hear these words:

at guild meetings and retreats;
at Albuquerque’s Botanic Garden in the BioPark where we demonstrate twice a month (in non-Covid 19 months, that is);
whenever and wherever any of us gather together to hook; and
whenever any of us teach – formally or informally.

The guidance can be in regard to most anything involved in rug making.

What color(s) would look best ?
Monk’s cloth, linen, or rug warp?
Wool strips or alternative fibers?
Which frame is best?
How high should my loops be?
Should I use quillies*?
Did I draw this right?
What do you think about _______?

If you’re a rug hooker, you know that the list is endless. Although our rugs are generally solo works of art, we often seek input from others, often those more experienced than ourselves.

We are a small and close-knit group. We are also not shy about expressing ourselves or our opinions. This means that when a hooker asks how he or she should finish their rug, they will often receive 10 or 15 differing opinions. Strident opinions. Discussion will ensue. The poor hooker might be overwhelmed. (We made someone cry once; it wasn’t our finest moment.) But, in the end, it all comes down to the same thing every time: “You are the boss of your rug.”

Being the boss of your rug – or your painting or your quilt or poem or whatever type of art you might make – means that you ultimately choose a design, colors, techniques, and so on. You make the piece with your own hands. And when you’re done with it, it is yours. Hopefully, you share it with the rest of us.

And we are proud of that person’s efforts.

Individually, I might think the rug needs improvement. Maybe blue would’ve worked better than black. Perhaps some of the loops fell out. Hell, maybe I hate the whole design. But it is NOT my rug. It is someone else’s rug, and I respect everything that he or she put into that rug. Or that short story or that piece of pottery.

We are proud that the person cared enough to make a rug. We are proud that he or she put themselves and their ego out there. That they felt safe enough to express themselves artistically in front of us. That they were able to say no to even the most vociferous of us and create their own rug.

Maybe you’re wondering why I bring this up.

Hooked rug — March 1: “Costco shopping trip pre-coronavirus. This was extreme hooking even for me. The TP roll was hooked with actual toilet paper. Not the easiest to work with but better than anticipated. Maybe if I spun it… Also wool yarn and strips.

In March, I wrote about my yearlong #RibbonRugJournal project. Basically, every day I hook an entry on a 3-inch or so length of a burlap ribbon roll. The image – more like a sketch – has to do with something from my day. It’s not a Picasso by any means. Burlap ribbon, I’ve found, sucks to hook on. Strings often break. It’s also a small space, not good for a lot of design definition, but I’ve made it over five months so I’ll keep going.

Little did I know in January what kind of year 2020 would be. Holy crap, Batman! Hence, in March the Coronacootie started showing up in my journal. And then in the last few weeks, #blacklivesmatter has dominated the news. As it should. And as we all know, that movement’s collision with politics has been cataclysmic for the country. Naturally, this has also made it into the #RibbonRugJournal.

What do I do with the journal? Every evening after I hook an entry, I take a picture and load it onto High on Hooking’s Instagram. This keeps me honest, plus some folks are following it. (Love you guys!) All of my Instagram posts are automatically loaded onto High on Hooking’s Facebook page. From there I share it on my personal Facebook page.

Embroidered wool on burlap ribbon — #ribbonrugjournal June 2: “ELBIB Abuse.” Did he hold that book, respecting it as the sacred item it is? Or did he heft it up as Exhibit A, “proof” of his love of God and his fellow men? I mean after peaceful protesters and clergy were driven from the church with tear gas. For his photo op. The Bible and the world turned upside down.

Tuesday, June 2, I posted a simple image. It was indeed politically motivated. I am not a fan of Mr. Trump and was fairly incensed to see him silently hold a Bible aloft in front of a Church he does not attend after his minions forcibly removed from the church area peaceful protesters and the clergy of that church. You can see that I also made textual comments which you can read.

Later in the evening, I saw that folks had commented on my social media. I’m good with that. But one woman had posted:

Is this the right place for politics? I come here for a break from reality for a bit.

I was taken aback. High on Hooking is my company; it’s Facebook page is my page. While I leave overtly political posts and memes and such for my personal page, this was just an element of another hooked rug project. And I’d posted other occasional political entries before. I explained much of this to the writer. A bit of a dust-up ensued as others came to the defense of my self-expression. I thought that was the end till I turned on my phone Wednesday morning to another comment:

No politics please!

Note the exclamation point. Although I didn’t agree with the first woman, I could understand where she was coming from. But this chick was telling me to not post political content on my own f-ing page! Really! Guess she doesn’t like her rug hooking or her art making her uncomfortable. Or she can’t handle people having a difference of opinion.

My response:

______, this is my page. I don’t compartmentalize my life, especially not my art. Rug hooking allows me to process all of life, not just the easy and good things. Please read responses below.

Lady, and anyone else who didn’t like my #RibbonRugJournal Tuesday night, feel free to pass over my “political” posts or to stop following me if it bothered you that much. You have no right to tell me or to even intimate that I shouldn’t integrate my opinions into my art that I show on my social media. I am the boss of my rugs and my pages!

Beth Miller of Parris House Wool Works wrote a great blog post back in 2017, called “Shut Up and Sing” – A Guide to Why Those in the Humanities Will Not Be Silent. I encourage you to read it if you worry about our rights and needs to self-express.

Whether you paint or hook or write or sing, remember that

YOU ARE THE BOSS OF YOUR ARTWORK.

*I defy anyone to show me when a quillie is a good idea. Just saying.

HIGH ON HOOKING

Tag: #RibbonRugJournal

Project Porn – the work of summer, 2021