My rug hooking corner

If you have been reading my latest posts, you will know that I got excited by a creativity module I took in a leadership program.  I came home from that training wondering why my living room didn't have a creativity center to inspire us daily, and why my rug stuff was all over the place spilling out of baskets and making it a pain to find anything when I wanted to sit down and hook. 

The consequence was two trips to IKEA, first to get a creativity center set up in a corner in my living.  That build in ended up displacing my rug hooking to a smaller area in my living room that would not hold the overflow of my baskets.  So for Mother's Day, the boys and I went back to IKEA and brought home another shelf and set it up in the rug hooking corner.  Now all my wool for my current projects resides in baskets that load in and out of the shelf easily.  I put a few inspiring books and magazines on rug hooking in one of the slots, and a basket of rug hooking tools in another.  Now I just have to pull the basket I need and flip on the light.

I am making headway on the Palette Constellation rug visible in the foreground.  I only have two more rows of color to go.  Then the royal pain of binding this monster.  Not sure how that is going to happen yet.

Wool Wallets

Yesterday at guild, one of the women had a beautiful kit to organize her wool.  It almost looked like a cosmetic case.  It was neat because it used muslin pages to separate the cut wool and it attached to a pretty outer shell that formed a handled purse.  I have seen women organize their wool using similar cloth leaves or even papertowel leaves, but nothing as pretty as these.  I decided that this was a great way to organize my strips and I wanted to order one.  The creator's name is Maureen Boswell and she calls her creations Woolie Pullie Purses.  I don't have a photo of her purse and I can't find any information about them on the internet.  Her business card has her contact information maureenboswell@bellsouth.net if you are interested in ordering one.

When I got home and started to look at my wool, I realized that the purse I saw was too large for my strips and their weren't enough muslin leaves to hold my 8 gradations and my dapple dye and my textures.  I needed something tinier and with more pages.  So I had a fun time last night getting out some embroidery floss and bits of felt and trying to put together a little wool wallet that might serve a similar function.  Here is what I came up with.