First rug of the New Year

The last few days I have been trying to get a block done on the Monthly Meditation Rug. I have not been able to catch up with September, October or November because I didn't get around to ordering my linen until so late in the season. So I just concentrated on hooking December's block, "Awaiting", and will return to hook the other three autumn months next autumn.

My original vision, to use Celtic images in the blocks didn't work out. I kept wanting to hook geometrics. So I settled on Celtic knots with December as my first try. Also the original color plan wasn't interesting enough, so I changed course on that too. Each block will be a different color on the color wheel, so the rug will be a color wheel geometric sampler.

I'm hooking it this way so that I can practice hooking with values, with lights and darks, with no worry about color. I hope to teach myself more and more about value hooking, and experiment with color intensities by altering the amount of gray and black I add to my palette dye formulas. I am trying to use the less intense hues in my backgrounds (wool dyed with some gray and black in the formulas), although I did throw in a few pure hue strips to keep the background moving. Since the word was "awaiting", I wanted the feel of moving around going toward something.

I learned on this first knot that I am not a precise artist. I thought my knot was centered when I drew it on and hooked it, but realize after hooking it that the knot is shorter on the left side than the right. This means that to do it correctly I should put a grid on each block before transferring the pattern. This way I can square it up as it should be. The problem is that if I do this now on the eleven other blocks, the one I have hooked already is going to be noticeable. So I either have to rehook it or eyeball the rest as I did the first.

Since I hang pictures by standing back and looking at the wall and then plunging in the nail, I probably won't draw grids on the other eleven blocks.

Hooking over the holidays

This holiday, besides making a couple more coasters for gifts, I am going to try to catch up on the monthly reflections rug. I don't have a picture to post yet, because I'm not done with my second square (October: Serving). I had planned to work each square with a Celtic pictorial design, but I can't seem to make it work. I keep turning to geometrics, and, oddly enough, hooking them without drawing the design on the foundation fabric.

This is really a strange approach for me, but it seems like the rug wants to come to life in bits and spurts on its own. It doesn't want me predesigning its every detail. The first square started with a nice drawing, and then, wham, it went out of the lines and the hook took over going where it wanted to, ignoring my original plan.

The second block has done the same thing. I started out with a picture, which quickly faded beneath a geometric pattern. What is emerging is a pattern of intricate blocks built to hold up the others. It is a geometric representing 'serving', where all of us are supported by what each of us does for the other.