Just stopping in for a brief update as I’m not feeling so well today. If you’re a local or coming to visit New Mexico (as you should, it’s a kick-ass place!) soon – as in this weekend – you simply must travel at least a bit on the 2nd annual New Mexico Fiber Crawl. It runs Friday through Sunday. Download your passport(and maps) and head for your vehicle. As I mentioned last week, Kathy Kelly and I will be vending and demonstrating at Casa San Ysidro in Coralles. We hope to see at least one or eight of you. Maybe margaritas afterwards???
So, say your big New Mexican adventure has you here the week AFTER the New Mexico Fiber Crawl. No worries! Come visit High on Hooking during our first Sunday at Albuquerque’s 2018 Rail Yard Market. There you’ll find…us!, yummy food, music, farm-fresh produce, and other artists selling their wares. What? Your dog is with you? No problem! Dogs are always welcome. Come get a doggie biscuit at the High on Hooking booth. Remember: Dogs love rugs!!!
“What’s on the frame?” is, unfortunately,Tynan-less this week. Sorry, but the slug was napping with Tom when I had to take the shot. “Zinnias” is all hooked. Getting ready to steam it so’s I can hem it in time for Friday’s New Mexico Fiber Crawl fun. Uh oh, I spy some holidays that must be filled!
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?
Me with Amy Buesing, former Facebook friend and now just…friend at the Albuquerque Recycled Art Fair last weekend.
So, Saturday dawned bright and COLD – about 35 degrees. At least the windstorm had passed.(If you’re from New Mexico, you know that spring goes by another name here: wind.) Tom and I toodled down the road a couple of miles to Albuquerque’s Open Space Visitors’ Center to participate in the Recycled Art Fair.
Got the tent up and all the rugs and such in place by 10:00’s opening. People were already showing up looking to score good stuff made from other folks’ waste. Music was playing. It was gonna be a great weekend. Certainly better than last year when it snowed and rained and winded the first day. All I had to do was wait for the customers to come to me.
And they did. To see what I was working on. I like to hook when I do shows. For one thing, it draws people in either to 1) figure out what the hell I’m doing or 2) tell me a story how they (or their mother/father/grandparent) used to hook. And, of course, there are the latch hook tales, but we’ll skip over that today. Fortunately, I love to chat up folks and to spread the hooking gospel, so no problem there.
The mug rug Amy purchased. In reality, being a double mug rug, it comes with two of those mugs.
The problem was that no one was buying.
And then, suddenly, none of that mattered. A woman approached my tent; I was in my camp chair working away muttering trash talk about people who weren’t buying my trash-to-treasures. She says, “Laura?” I respond affirmatively, pleasantly even, because I have to I’m that kind of person. And then she tells me who she is: Amy Buesing of Las Cruces!
If you don’t know Amy, and I know many of you do, she’s a member of my guild but can’t make the monthly meetings given the five-hour drive between Albuquerque and Las Cruces. I’m pretty sure that she and I became Facebook friends before I left Massachusetts and even knew there was such a thing as the Adobe Wool Arts Guild. We bonded over family matters and such. Last October she and Mary Ramsey, our guild president, roomed together at the ATHA Biennial. Neither had met the other, but hookers are game for that kind of thing. Mary told me that Amy and I would hit it off when we finally met.
Here’s the thing, I thought that would be in September when Sharon Smith of Off the Wool Rugs comes to give a workshop. But Amy surprised me. She was in town and, knowing that I had a show, she made time before driving home to come meet me. I was touched. So touched
Duh! One of the two mugs that actually got wrapped up and went home with Amy. Fortunately, it’s easy to find a mug to go with this rug. Undoubtedly, I already have one on the shelf.
and discombobulated that, when she bought one of my rugs, I 1) almost didn’t give her her $10 of change and 2) sent her home with a mug that didn’t match the double mug rug that she bought. Duh! I’ll get the right one out to you later this week, Amy!
Not only did I get to chat with Amy and her friend/travel buddy Michele, but she must’ve brought some good luck for me too. I managed to sell a few rugs the next day, including the sunflower table runner/wall-hanging I just finished. And then I was invited by the fair’s organizers to participate in their Cinco de Mayo Folk Art Fest on May 5 here in town. Woohoo! And all because of Amy. Cathy Kelly, also of AWAG and general hooking fame, will be doing that one with me. Come visit us!
Have you met any Facebook folks years after friending them? Heaven or a horror story?
Tynan’s back with “What’s on the frame today.” It’s being hooked out of mostly bed sheets. Not that he cares. He just wanted the treat I was holding. Have to get this one done so that I can remake the sunflower rug.
That’s the thumbnail of first rug I put up on my Etsy shop: “Hatch’s BIG Chile.” I thought that it was pretty appropriate given how much I love my new state of New Mexico. But can you believe that I’ve lived her for almost three years?!!?
After about three years of telling myself that I was going to put an Etsy shop together, I finally broke down and did it. Woohoo! (Okay, the last vow was to do it this past winter. I got close; it went up the first day of spring, which is still practically winter in a lot of the country.)
You’ll find the shop at: https://www.etsy.com/shop/HighonHooking. Now, no sniggers. I know it’s still just an itty bitty shop with – at the moment – two listings. But everyone’s got to start somewhere. And not only did I have to figure out all that was involved with the shop and creating listings and taking pics, I had to do some updating of the website here, so that things would match. Okay too, maybe I hadn’t taken care of the Gallery in a while. Maybe some of those items were sold last year. But it’s better now. Not perfect; I’ll work more on completing the website after the Etsy show has a little more…heft.
So, spread the news! You might want to add that I’ll be adding more rugs to the shop on a regular basis. If you have any ideas of how to make it a more inviting shop, give me a yell. I’m happy to get advice, especially if you already have your own Etsy shop. And if you do have a rug hooking ETSY shop, feel free to share the address below in the comments. Later I’ll transfer the info onto the “Cool Resources” page.
To those who celebrate as I do, have a joyful Easter surrounded by friends and family!
“What’s on the frame” this week isn’t what’s on the frame. Instead I’m doing a LOT of sewing: starting and finishing rugs. If you’ve been around awhile, you know that I sew my rug binding on before I start to hook. It’s just the way I was taught. Plus I can hook right up to the tape and rarely need to do any whipping. But maybe you enjoy the tedium of whipping? Said NO ONE ever! Because I have Albuquerque’s Recycled Art Fair next month, I’m trying to get a jump on several mug rugs. Then there are the finished rugs; well, not completely finished rugs. I’ve been putting off their hemming. Also not my favorite thing, but so much faster than whipping (she said gleefully). And unless they sell right off, all these rugs and mats will appear in my Etsy shop. For those missing Tynan, I thought it best to keep him away from all the pins and needles. He can’t get hurt. Tomorrow’s his 10th birthday!
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.”
