There's been a lot of buzz recently about artist trading cards, or ATCs, so I thought I'd jump in and try a few.
The parameters are pretty simple, in any medium, it seems -- size is standard, at 2.5" x 3.5", with information on the back to say who you are, when it was created, contact info and whatever you want, after that. Then, you just find other willing traders and collect little expressions of creativity.
Because they are small, the cost in materials and time invested in each one is fairly modest. I used backing that was cut off a large project (which appeals to my thrifty nature), and woolly worms I had on hand. I've also collected buttons for many years, as well as being a fabricoholic, so I used some cute little buttons on the geometric ATC. Embellishments are fairly common, so you could mix felting and hooking, add bits of fancy ribbon and trim, and generally have fun!
Looking at the photo, I see my little crooked house tree should have been in a punchier green, the paisley is not immediately recognizable as such, the tree with the sunset is rather fuzzy.... but I enjoyed the process and will try some more. I'll probably do the next batch in finer cuts of wool. These tiny mats are in #6 to handcut strips of woven and knitted wool, as well as yarn. Some specialty dyed wools give an extra dimension of colour.
Rughooking might be only a wintertime pastime for many, but the Quoddy Loopers in St Andrews meet all year long, every Wednesday, from 6:30 to 8:30pm, in the Parish Centre of the Catholic Church of St Andrew. It is below ground--refreshingly cool in the summer and cozily warm in the winter. The only exception is when a holiday falls on that day or the weather is too treacherous to venture out. Those are both rarities. Do post a comment on the blog, if you like, to let us know you'd like to join us. I will then email you and confirm that we are indeed meeting that day.
I have been busy on several Wednesday evenings lately, so I am missing my Quoddy Looper 'fix'--it is lovely to get together and see what each of the others is working on, might have finished or is planning to start. Hopefully some of the other members will have photos of their rugs for me to post. These two are ones I've done to satisfy a challenge - a semi-abstract (above, left) and what I call a fall colour study (right) - an effort at impressionism. I have quite a ways to go, and will likely do another few such studies. It's a great way to use up leftover woolly worms. Both mats are on primitive linen, #6 to 8 cuts. The colour study used up the last of my shaving cream dyed wool (left); time to get the dye pots out!
Judy Morrison, administrator of the NBMR, sends out this information regarding this exciting project. It is a brave undertaking to catalogue histories and images of rugs and mats in New Brunswick.
New Brunswick Mat Registries
§Spring registries are being held in St Andrews and Bouctouche., New Brunswick. The Quoddy Loopers and Kingsbrae Garden are hosting a NBMR registry on May 29, 9am to 4pm. Les Hookeuses de Bouctouche and Kent Museum are hosting a NBMR registry on June 5th. These will be our first public registries andwe are excited to see what treasurers are out there!
§If you have a mat or rug you would like to enter into the registry, please leave a comment here on the blog and we will contact you to make an appointment on May 29th in St Andrews.
§In the fall we are planning registries in Fredericton and Moncton. Dates and venues to be confirmed.
§It has been suggested that we start a waiting list for registries. So... if you know someone that has a mat to register– send me their name and phone number. When there is a registry scheduled for their region we can phone them.
(image is of Louise M's rug, made from an old pattern inherited from her aunt, done in #8 cut wool)
Growing Support
·The support for NBMR is growing both with our fellow hookers and with others interested in protecting this unique resource for the people of New Brunswick.
·The University of Moncton – Acadian Museum have offered resources to support the project.
Financial Support
·The NBMR has obtained a major financial sponsor - Briggs and Little Woolen Mill. They are providing a portion of funding to support our registries for five years. We will be printing our brochure showing their support. Please support them as a customer when you can! The mill is located inbetween Fredericton and St Andrews, NB. They make a wide range of wonderful colours of 100% Canadian domestic wools in different weights (up to 46 colours in each one), milled at their factory in York Mills, New Brunswick, Canada, the same place it's been for over 150 years. "Try Knitting with the same yarn that your Grandma and Great Grandma used!"
click on image below, for more information on the mat registry:
·Fredericton’s Heritage Guild sponsored a great project hooking ornaments that sold very successfully, contributing a large donation to the registry.
·New Brunswick hooking groups continue to donate monies to the registry. These are so important – whether $10 or $100. This support is the foundation of the project’s longevity and shows other contributors that the project is supported from the ground up.
·We are working on a financial campaign with a package (letter, information and donation form) that will be available to approach potential contributors. Let me know if you know someone who could be interested in contributing to this project, and I will pass along the info to the group.
Please note: the registry is not a financial assessment of rugs, but an effort to gather information that might otherwise be lost to future generations. .
Several Quoddy Loopers are working on their Rug Aid mats from the November 21,2009 international Rug Rave event for Rug-Aid, a not-for-profit organization begun by UK rughooker & teacher Heather Ritchie, who has been helping blind and vision-impaired people and their families, in Gambia.
Heather is from Reeth, in England, and is helping the community in Gambia towards their aim of having a building of their own in which to keep their supplies and meet to hook rugs. They sell the rugs they make to visitors. The image to the left is Heather's version of the pattern that people all over the world purchased from her to help with the fundraising.
Heather has been working with the group, teaching, providing materials and spearheading the fundraising efforts, with the aim of eventually providing a building for the rughookers to work and store their materials in. For the time being, they have the use of a community room to work in but have to carry everything home between their sessions. Rug Aid also pays their transportation and provides some food for the workers. Sighted people hook outlines, sort the fabric into colours and the blind rughookers fill in the spaces. At the Rug Rave, we were to each try hooking blindfolded for 30 minutes – it’s not easy! We each paid a fee to Heather for the use of the pattern and everyone is hooking their own version. The intention is to raffle off the rugs by our 2010 hook-in and remit those funds to Rug-Aid as well.
More info from the rug-aid.org website: "Heather Ritchie first visited the Gambia in 2007. She was amazed at how quickly the blind people she taught at the GOVI (Gambian Organisation for the Visually Impaired) Resource Centre learned to make rag rugs, even though she didn't know their language. They learned very quickly and used second hand t-shirts to create their rugs. The aim of Rug Aid is to provide opportunities for women and children in some of the poorest communities in Africa. They will make rugs, wall hangings and decorative items for sale locally, nationally and, maybe later, through fair trade organisations world wide. By providing opportunities for women and children, the aim of Rug Aid is to bring about change 'from the bottom up'."
This one is hooked with mainly as-is recycled wool, in #6 to 9 cuts, on burlap, or 'hessian', as it is called in the UK.
Nancy G, on The Welcome Mat, nosed out the info on this huge rug bee/hook-in:
"In the book Color in Hooked Rugs by Pearl K. McGown on page 295. 'In July, 1951, the first PUBLIC Hooking Bee was staged on the green at Storrowton Village (Eastern States Expo) in West Springfield, Mass.' It was supervised by Mrs. Ione Winans, Over one thousand women [and at least one man] came with frames, rugs and of course a lunch! That's a lot of rughookers in one spot!"
1000+ rughookers - almost all women - together on a beautiful sunny day to share their love of the craft and art of rughooking - heaven! Except, these days, if we were to get that many at an 'rug bee', there would be a serious scarcity of corsets, hats, pearls, dresses, hosiery, heels... it's a different world.
Karen E, one of the Quoddy Loopers, was asked by her daughter Leigh to make her a rug in the style of a stained glass window in their home - diamond panes, in bright colours. She certainly succeeded! This is a happy rug, with an almost hit-or-miss placement of colours (you may notice that the opposing triangles do match each other, for the most part, framing the mat nicely). It's almost hypnotic, gazing at the colours and watching different groups of diamonds forming themselves into patterns within the whole. So this is a 'scrappy' rug that is beautifully harmonious; about 3ft by 2ft. Karen hand cuts almost exclusively, the old-fashioned way, and whipped the edges with black woollen yarn.
I was asked by our elder son to hook a mat with a pig theme, for a friend who is unwell and collects things piggy. With the assurance that the recipient has a good sense of humour, this rug came to be. Pigs can too fly! ...with a little help from their friends.
The mat is mostly #6 cut, with odd details in #5. Some of the 'fields' are hand torn and cut wools, about 1/2 to 5/8" wide.
Megan's Garden, designed by Denise Chessie and hooked for Megan, Mary's 6 year old great niece, for Christmas, 2009. The design offers a bug's eye view of a garden, with delightful, expressive crawlies and winged insects. The fun colours make it a special gift and one that Megan couldn't wait to tickle her toes on. She got it right away that it would be delightful to step onto her rug with her bare feet each morning. It's always a happy thing when a recipient really appreciates their hand crafted gift of love.
Megan's rug is done in #3, 4 & 5 cut on cotton rug warp
The next is also by Mary J - Ann Hanging Wash. Mary says "it was designed by Joan Kays and hooked for my best friend Diane on her 67th birthday in 2007. It was returned to me by her son after she lost her battle with cancer in May of 2009."
More of the Quoddy Loopers' and visitors' rugs on display at the Quoddy Loopers' 3rd annual Hurricane Hook-in and more shopping, rughooking and looking.
It was a great day, with a wide variety of styles, colour-ways and methods. Traditional, primitive, modern, bright colours, muted, pastels or darks... a bit of everything.
A delicious lunch, thanks to the Guild of the Catholic Church of St Andrew, where we meet weekly, as well as holding our annual hook-in, the first Saturday of November. Our regular vendor, Sande Gunning of River Gallery, was on hand with her gorgeous wools, patterns, tools, books and other wonderful implements of the art of traditional rughooking.
Mark your calendars, but please let us know you are coming!
This was an entry in an online challenge on The Welcome Mat rughooking forum. The challenge was to use 20 colours in 10" - aptly due in early 2010. Every pillow, rug, mat or knitting needle case was different. This is 10" high and about 24" wide, in various cuts and weights of wool. I've always loved quilts and the clamshell pattern is an oldie and goodie, so I wondered what it would be like hooked. It's mainly blues, greens and yellow/golds with a bit of brown for balance - or ballast - hooked in a semi-random hit-or-miss fashion. It used up a good amount of odds and ends of wool, and is itself a welcome mat, of course.
Speaking of which, our traditional rughooking group meets weekly -- Wednesday evenings, 6:30 - 8:30, in St Andrews Catholic church parish centre, corner of Parr and King Streets -- and visitors are always welcome!
Carol B is no longer a newbie - she has been hooking for a couple of years now with our Quoddy Loopers group and has quite a few mats to her credit. This latest one is a Deanne Fitzpatrick design, depicting a Newfoundland Harbour, titled "Looking out to Sea". It was a kit, with #8 cut wool, plus some extra to 'frame' it. Carol has captured the care-free feeling Deanne is known for.
Then we have another mat from Sandra -who says"The Gift was [a free pattern] in December 2009 Create &Decorate Magazine. It was designed by Jo Ellen Dismukes. I hooked it in my usual 4 cut."Sandra had this happy mat completed by Christmas!
And another of Sandra's rugs - this one an adaptation of van Gogh's painting "Flower Beds in Holland". Completed January 2010, using many of Sandra's own dyed wools, in 4 cut.
Spring is coming... eventually... and this mat sings of spring!
