Working on All in the Family

I like to have at least one picture showing my rug in the process of being hooked.  I print one of them on the label for each rug I finish, so my son (who I assume will have my rugs one day) will have a memory of me working on each piece.

My friend Lurie took this snapshot of me hooking on my big rug, All in the Family, at the Hankamer Hook In the first weekend of March.  Wanted to get this posted earlier, but last week was crazy- busy with Alexander (who had strep).

Is my rug getting smaller?

Or is Alexander getting bigger?!  My gosh it looks like he has grown inches since my last picture with this rug, only one row ago!

Progress report: finished the fifth row today, so I am now 5/12ths done, one row away from 1/2!  I am truly excited about the fifth row, because #5 is my yellow dye and the family it creates when mixed with all the other dyes on the color wheel. 

So this is the family where the greens really start to show because of the yellow blends with dyes containing blue, and the rug takes on a new dimension.  This drastic change will happen again when we get to my 9th row which is blue and its family.  This third primary will cause the rug to shift into purple tones because of the blue and red blends that will start happening at that point in the chart.

On to row 6, Yellow-Green.  I started this rug on January 5th, so I am two months into the project.  I need to pick up some speed to get this done by my projected date, June 1.

Loopgram: tips for hooking a BIG rug

All in the Family is 3'7" by 9'.  It is a BIG rug.  It is heavy and cumbersome already, and I am just over 1/3 complete.  What have I learned so far? 

1. If you want to hook a BIG rug, just go for it.  Don't let the size overwhelm you.  It is just a rug, and you will hook it in stages, and give yourself a break to work on another project when you need to.

2. Select the widest cut size your design will allow.  This will result in faster hooking so when you work on it, you will see measurable and reassuring progress every time you hook.  I am using #9 and I always feel that progress is being made.

3. Start in a corner and hook in 8-inch swathes. Do not start in the center.  Do not hook all your motifs and then your background.  If you do either of these things, you will never be able to handle the weight and the bulk of the rug.  So figure out the direction you hook.  I hook left to right (like I read or write) and from top to bottom (downwards).  So I have started in the upper left corner of the rug, and I hook 8-inches across, working from the top of the rug all the way to the bottom.  When I get to the bottom, I have a full 8-inch swath hooked on the left side of my rug.  Then I move my rug to the top again and hook down the next 8-inch swath.  As the rug develops, it falls to my left.  I prop it on a big basket or a chair to balance the weight so it isn't pulling down my stand.  I can get under the rug to hook it because I don't have anything in my lap except unhooked foundation.  If you hook right to left (as most ruggers do) you will want to start in the upper right hand corner and hook down, and move the rug to the right as you progress.

4. Use a stand.  I can't imagine trying to do this using a quilting hoop or a lap frame or a table top.

5. Think about marking your progress in stages.  I take a picture after each row I hook and put it up on my blog.  I also have broken it down into thirds, so I can measure how much more I have to go, and how much I have already done.

6. Set a goal to finish.  I did this by seeing how long it took to hook the first few swathes.  My goal is to have it hooked, bound and mounted by June 1.

Progress report 2: All in the Family

I have been working on my big color rug, All in the Family.  I am one-third finished, with four rows of my twelve completed.  The colors are arranged according to the twelve colors on the color wheel and how I mixed them with each other.  Alexander (with his missing top front tooth!) is showing off my progress.  The rug will be nine feet long when finished.

I start row 5 tomorrow - yellow, the fifth color on the color wheel.  I will be hooking down in the column all the colors that are created when I mix yellow with each color on the color wheel.

Progress with All in the Family

I worked on All in the Family at Kirby Hooking Circle yesterday, and will pick it up again tonight.  I had to dye another color (Milkweed 115) in order to proceed.  The women at KHC were shocked at the size of the rug.  They said it didn't show up that big on the blog.  So Alexander laid down next to it this afternoon and I shot a picture.  It is almost 50" high and will be over 9 feet long.

Been dyeing

So work has been intense lately, with starting the new semester and writing and getting my seminar on death underway.  But while I was home cooking this weekend, I did manage to dye up two batches of wool so I can continue hooking All in the Family. 

I am on the third column which is the Orange color family.  In this column, I will be hooking the twelve colors on the wheel mixed with my orange dye (Jacky Lantern 103).  The first in the column will be Finnigan Flame 102, followed by Bittersweet Red 162, Jacky Lantern 103, Peter Pumpkin 163, Somerset Sunset 104, etc.  The dyed wools pictured here are Bittersweet Red 162 (top) and Somerset Sunset 104 (bottom).  I can't wait to get this column started after school today.

All in the Family: Progress Report 1

I have been going to town on All in the Family.  I have about 10th of it completed at this point.  I have been dyeing a few colors that I need to work down the first two family rows (red-left column; red-orange-right column).  I am hooking this in a 9 which is the widest I have ever hooked before.

I thought that hooking linear rows was going to bore me to death because I have always found it tough to hook geometrics, the same pattern over and over.  But this hasn't turned out to be the case.  Hooking this mat has been wonderful so far.  I get excited each time I open a new pack of wool and hook in the new color.  I am now able to see a color progression which I surmised was there because of the way in which I have developed my dye process.  But now I can see it!

I have made two alterations to my design so far.  First, I couldn't figure out how to hook the pattern with curved lines.  I started out with curved lines and it just became a mess very fast.  So I went to straight rows, and I think it achieves what I want in a very powerful way.

Second, I quickly saw that I needed some kind of menu for the rug, something that told the story about what was happening with the color progression.  So I decided to hook a color wheel around the border.  The color in the top border shows the dye used to create all the colors in that column.  The color in the side border shows the color that was used to create all the colors in that row.  In other words, I am hooking a color chart.  If you take the color at the top of the column and mix it with the color in the side of the row, you get the color at that intersection.

Today as I hook it is cold and rainy.  I have a fire in the fireplace.  Wade is grading papers.  Alexander is playing.  And I have three pots of wool dyeing in the garage.  Couldn't be better!

Last day before the semester starts

I decided to stay home and enjoy my last day before the onslaught of the semester.  I brought home some reading which I am doing to prepare for my opening class tomorrow. And I am doing it while dyeing two batches of wool that I need to continue hooking All in the Family.  I have made some good progress on this rug, but as I work down the first and second columns (the Red Family and the Red-Orange Family), I have run out of some of my colors.  So I am cooking up Pink Iris 134 (right in photo) and Ellendale Orange 126 (left in photo). Each jar contains one strip of wool, one of the eight values of the colors.

I thought the dyes in the jars looked so pretty, almost citric and wintry, that I had to snap a picture.  The colors are making me think of oranges and grapefruit growing on the trees here in Texas.

Starting All in the Family

This week, I have been planning my big abstract.  It looks like it will be about 100" by 50".  What I am planning is twelve columns of twelve colors, arranged according to their familial dye relationship.  Imagine the twelve columns to represent each of the twelve colors on the color wheel.  Each of the columns contains twelve dyes created by mixing together the twelve colors on the color wheel (I show the start of the first two columns in the picture).  In the first column I show my red dye, as it is mixed pure (first red color square hooked in the lefthand corner of the picture ), below this is a square that was created by mixing the red dye with orange-red (the hooked square right below the first).  Below this will be my red dye mixed with my orange dye.  Then my red dye mixed with my orange-yellow dye.  And so on around the color wheel.  The second column is my orange-red dye similarly mixed with all 12 colors on the wheel.  The rug column's will advance accordingly.

I am hooking the piece with a #9 (my new Bee-Townsend cutter head which I LOVE), the biggest cut I have ever used.  I am thankful that I bought a 9mm Hartman hook because I could not hook this rug without it.  Wow does it make the job easy.  It took me a while to figure out the spacing so that I didn't end up with squashed or bent loops.  I am hooking loops in every two holes like I do for any other cut, but when I advance to the next line, I am skipping five (!) linen strands.  I tried four, but some of the loops were bent.  Five seems to do the trick, but it feels like I am leaving a very wide ditch between rows.

I'll update as I hook this rug.  I am going to need encouragement.  It is big, and it is repetitive since it mainly consists of hooking straight lines.  I tried curved lines at first, but was soon pulling out my hair, and decided that for this rug, straight lines would work fine!