Finished totes

Today I had the pleasure of enjoying a day of rug hooking with the Stash Sisters ATHA guild. Two sisters had finished their Fanciful Flower Sampler totes and several others made great progress. With their permission, I post here the fabulous results. I love to see how these designs came to life through others hearts and hands!

Sondra Ives and Sylvia Hale sport their fancy totes, beautifully hooked and finished.

Annie Ore shows her embellished sampler top ready to be sewn into a pack or tote. Marguerite Evans started to hook Mr. Toad's Garden and made good progress on the sunflower. Look at that color!

Martha Lowry and Janie Kennedy worked up fantastic examples of daisies, still working on prodding other areas of the sampler top.

Sondra's progress on her tote

Sondra Ives sent me some pictures of her progress on her Fanciful Flower tote so far. I was so excited about her creativity, that I asked her if I could post a couple of the pictures even though it is not finished yet. She kindly agreed.

Here is a photo of the whole tote top. Notice how she sewed a piece of linen foundation fabric in the center instead of four wool fabric blocks, so that she could hook the toad from Mr. Toad's Garden. She then appliqued by hand a lily pad under him. She used unusual fabrics for the dragon fly's wings, and embellished the sunflower with a bee button.

But the neatest feature I think is her needle-felted cattails. Wow. She needle-felted them directly on the top. I saw them in person on Thursday at the Stash Sisters meeting, and they are beautifully done.

Needle-felting is new to me. Five years ago, when I took my leave from rug hooking because I had a new baby, I don't recall anything about it. I am hoping to learn how to do it from one of the women in the guild since several are very good felters.

As the women finish up their totes, I hope to get their permission to post pictures of their work here. It is impressive indeed.

Fanciful Flower Sampler Workshop

Did we have fun!

The Stash Sisters are some of the most creative women I have ever had the pleasure of rug hooking with. None are afraid of color and experimenting with fabrics. Each came with the sampler top sewn and we first worked on the sunflower, talked about daisies and leaves, and in a couple of hours all had their sampler tops well underway.

I loved the way in which each person made the sampler top her own. Sondra and Sylvia put some blocks of linen in, so that they could hook some elements on their samplers.

Martha used black and white plaids for her sampler top which gave her a wonderful neutral but stunning canvas for prodding.

Louise, Janie and Annie combined bright wools for tops that show off with limes and plums and oranges.

P.D. worked on Mr. Toad's Garden and used an outstanding mottled wool for sunflower leaves.

I can't wait to see the progress on these pieces in a few weeks!