Maureen's batch of mats

The fantasy mat on the right I call "tall skinny crewel"; it was hooked in wide-cut bright colours right into a fairly loosely woven Cottage Craft wool, to brighten up a dark corner by our back door. Because no flower is meant to be recognizable, it was fun to just play with colours and shapes; these type of flowers are often called 'padulas' in rughooking circles. Hooked in many cuts, from #3 to hand-torn 1/2" wide wools. As-is and specialty dyed wools; 10" wide by 39" tall.

Cottage Craft is a wool shop in the heart of St Andrews, NB (Canada), right on Market Square: "Producing quality Canadian woollen products in St. Andrews by-the-Sea for over ninety years…." They offer handknit sweaters, exclusive tweed apparel, woollen skeins in a wide array of colours and sweater kits. Cottage Craft yarns and hand-woven tweed are 100% wool, made here in the Canadian maritimes.

 

A funky cat (left), hooked for a friend's sister-in-law. Hooked in wide cut yarn fabric; 10" x 8". 

Georgia's mat, below, was made for our one-year old granddaughter.

The mat is 29" W x 20" tall, hooked on linen;  mainly #6 to #8 cut (6/32" to 8/32", which is how rughookers measure the cut wool strips that we use to hook our mats and rugs) with some hand-torn, up to 5/8" wide.

Georgia trying out her new mat, before it was finished (also her new birthday bathing suit, ready for summer fun!)

Here are some more mats, in various stages. I guess I should finish up a few!

Two Deer & a Tree
(Mostly wide hand-torn and cut 100% wool fabrics,
on burlap; 22" x 19")

 

 

 

abstract hit-or-miss, scrappy little mat
(10.5" x 12"; unfinished)

stained glass workshop little mat
(10.5" x 14"; unfinished)

Another crewel play piece, destined to be
a pillow someday. Fantasy flowers are fun!
(#5,6 & 8 cuts; 13" x 12.5" on Verel; unfinished)

(all original designs, Maureen Mc, except stained glass sailboat, from a workshop with Doris Norman)

Louise's rendition of Deanne Fitzpatrick's little portraits of women.

Louise is hooked on Deanne Fitzpatrick's free style of hooking and has done several of her mat designs.These two are her women, as Deanne says, reminiscent of her family and neighbours from Newfoundland (and Labrador).

On the left, Hortense and on the right, unfortunately, I don't have a name for her. Both are very expressive, with some details merely suggested. The viewer supplies the rest.

These are both done in wide cuts for small mats, not meant to be realistic, but rather 'impressionistic'.

Carol's been busy again!

Here are two wintry mats from Carol - both Deanne Fitzpatrick designs. The snow-covered trees were to be lupins, in Deanne's mind, but Carol asked if it was okay to change them to trees, and Deanne was agreeable. While we are glad to see the back of winter, I was slow in getting these posted, so I hope you'll forgive me the lapse back into snow and Santa.

Deanne's shop/studio is in Amherst, NS, about 3 hours' drive from us in St Andrews, NB. Well worth the journey! Quite a few of the Quoddy Loopers have done at least one of Deanne's patterns and several keep going back for more.

The third of Carol's mats was actually done before the other two. It is from a free pattern out of Rug Hooking Magazine, "Yellow Ware Pitcher Floral Pattern Insert" (designed by Wendy Miller, Jan/Feb 2006). It is hooked mainly with woollen yarn, on burlap. Carol added some nice interest in the background with random bits of colour.  She has whipped these all in the traditional way, with wool yarn.

For most rughookers, doing a lot of solid background is not appealing. Me included - I'd far rather hook squiggles, circles, lines or something besides a solid area. Then there's whipping - my least favourite part, though it does a very good job of eating up time spent in an airport or any sort of waiting room.

All sorts of mats to show today - from Hella, Karen and Sandra

 On the left, a stained glass design, taken from one of the gorgeous stained glass panels in the Saint John Art Centre, a well-preserved Carnegie building in Saint John, New Brunswick.

Several of the Quoddy Loopers attended the hook-in of the Carnegie Rug Hookers in that building. Last year, the welcome gift for each visitor was a small pattern on burlap with a colour photo of the skylight. Several have done the pattern and all have taken artistic liberties; it's interesting to see each interpretation. Hella's has a luminous coppery-bronze sort of feeling. Hella's mats are done in 3 cut and yarn, with her usual meticulousness (10" sq).




 Another exquisite small piece of Hella's on the right - a floral sampler. It may have been designed as a chair pad, but it will not likely be sat on! (14" across)


Below is Hella's version of the Rug-Rave mat for Rug-Aid.Rug-Rave mats are 18.5"W x 14"H.








And below, Karen's version of the same design by Heather Ritchie, begun in November, 2009, to raise funds for Rug Aid, which is a charity helping the blind in Gambia to make some money through hooking rugs.

 Now for Sandra's recent rugs. On the right, a sweet little mat inspired by her grandson's drawing. Sandra said, "Here is a small mat measuring 4" X 11" that was taken from a drawing done by my 6 year old grandson Alexander.  I hooked this piece to give to his mother as a keepsake."

The next, below, is done for Sandra's youngest grandchild, simply titled "Leigha's rug". Sandra works in #4 cut almost exclusively and uses commercial patterns as well as those, like these two, done from imagination. (approx 25" x 20")

 

The final mat today is also Sandra's, a traditional 'hit-or-miss' design that approximates basketry, and is done with all the leftover woolly worms that all rughookers pile up over time.  These 'scrappy' geometrics are quick to work on, especially if one follows the tradition of no colour plan at all, but rather allowing a natural eruption of whatever colour comes next to hand. (approx 35" x 22")

Quoddy Loopers 5th Annual Hurricane Hook-in

Everyone's invited to the Quoddy Loopers 5th annual Hurricane Hook-in, Saturday, November 5, 2011.

As always, located in the parish centre (lower hall) of the Catholic Church of St Andrew. Starting at 10 am, with snacks and a soup and sandwich lunch - plus gifts for everyone - free! Tickets sold on great 'hookey' gift basket to benefit the church, and on RugRave-Rug Aid rugs with proceeds to Rug-Aid.org

Just bring your hooking and a recent mat (or more) to share for show and tell, if you like, and PLEASE do let us know you are coming, so we won't run out of food!

We'll wind up around 3:30, after a day of hooking, looking, shopping (www.RiverGallery.ca), eating and visiting. It's always fun

Please RSVP here or email Mary at mcbjones (at) rogers dot com

A very loose depiction of St Andrews, still in the works

Two deer and a tree

Here's my latest rug in process... came out of a doodle in a boring meeting.

The colours aren't quite true - the beiges, rust and green are warmer. Mostly hand-cut and torn, 100% wool on burlap.

Cindi Gay's new guide to rug hooking on the internet

Cindi Gay is a beautiful rughooker - well, I've never met her but her hand hooked rugs are beautiful and she acts like a beautiful person; ergo... 

 

One of my absolute favourite rugs ever is her Village of Pemberville (an historic town in Ohio where she lives... the love shines through). She teaches, dyes, sells wool, patterns, etc, blogs and hooks and most recently started a new website to share other rughooking websites and blogs. She calls it "Your guide to rug hooking on the internet" and was kind enough to ask to post this blog on her new site. 

 

So, if you have a rughooking site, please contact Cindi, who says:

 

Do you have a rug hooking website you want to get noticed? 

For a limited time, get your site added to this listing for no cost.   

Get Listed

 

If you are not familiar with Cindi's gorgeous rugs, visit cindigayrughooking.com (more on Cindi's rugs, below, including her ongoing blog topic of a really big rug she's been working on for a few years).

Cindi says, "I started my website in 2001 with beginners in mind. Since I had just started hooking, I was very aware about how hard it was to find information.

"My current project (and probably for the next few years) is a room sized rug. I started posting about the rug from the first day, October 1, 2007. Read the articles to follow along as I put the pattern on the backing, start hooking and then struggle with the borders as I design them as I go.
"The website includes an online store where you can purchase wool, red dot, my patterns and other rug hooking supplies."

Sandra's 'vintage' mat for grandson Nolan

"Nolan's Rug" (design by T Heather Lewis)

Sandra's sister Heather drew out a vintage garage and truck scene, then Sandra hooked away on "Nolan's Rug" at her usual speed - fast forward - and had it ready for Christmas. No mystery about origin - with a Canadian flag flying over the scene!

 

It measures a hefty 42" X 24.5", mostly #4 cut, with the sky in #6. Sandra dyes much of her own wool.

Annual rug display at the local Ross Memorial Museum

Every year, the Quoddy Loopers, along with other St Andrews and area groups and residents each decorate a room at the beautiful decorative arts museum. The Ross Memorial Museum is housed in a gracious red brick home, bought expressly by the Rosses to house the collection they had built up over a lifetime. We are fortunate to have such an exquisite little museum, and the community pulls together, baking cookies for the hundreds and hundreds of school children who come through each year, just before the Open House on the first weekend of December. Others decorate, host, welcome and feed the many more hundreds of visitors who start off the festive season with a wonderful tour of all the enthusiastically, creatively decorated rooms.

A selection of the rugs & mats on display - the floor was covered, the walls and just about every other surface, plus a few non-hooked items to add more festive fun.

Quoddy Loopers, not surprisingly, decorate their chosen room with rugs, mats and the varied paraphernalia of rughooking. Wools of all kinds, burlap or linen patterns in different stages of completion, hooks, magazines and books... rugs on the floor, mats on the walls, furniture and screen. Sprinkle with an array of Christmas ornaments, stockings and a couple of little trees, and the room is ready. Just add demonstrators working on a rug or two throughout the long weekend, and wait for the questions. Children are invariably fascinated by all the rugs and we set them a few questions - how many Santas can you find? And snowmen? Birds?