Pictorial hooking with Jane Halliwell Green

Jane Halliwell Green (who writes Jane's Green Art blog) has a new book on pictorial hooking that is coming out soon. She is working on developing a video to include with the book and she has put up a trial run on YouTube where she shows how to use prodding effectively in landscapes as grass and to give distinction scenery. I will add her video to my virtual classroom. Her book can be pre-ordered at Amazon for a substantial discount: Pictorial Hooked Rugs by Jane Halliwell Green. It looks like it is going to contain a bunch of new ideas and artistic tips for making pictorials pop!

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.

Loopgram: Proddy perspective

While my sister was visiting from Michigan, I didn't get too much done in terms of actual hooking. I did manage to prod one sunflower and hook one pant leg. Last night I hooked the another sunflower. Both flowers turned out well.

The top flower, I tried to get a perspective other than straight on. I did this by hooking the center as an oval and prodding smaller petals along the upperside than the lowerside of the flower. The center is hooked as a half, so that the hooking doesn't go in a full circle except for the center black which is a small round placed at the top edge of the big oval. For the petals, I used some yellow-green wool that I picked up from Stonehill while we were in the Hill Country.

I tried to create a raised fuzzy center for the bigger sunflower with green scraps I dug out of my bits-n-strips bag. The perspective is straight on, so the center is round and the petals are evenly sized and distributed.

I'm not too excited about Scare-Jack yet, just want to get him done. I am still waiting for my Dorr white wool to come in, when I can return to dyeing and hooking Transfiguration, a piece I started last August and want to finish up as quickly as I can so I can hang her above my fireplace mantel.

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!