Wednesday, April 18, 2012 at 7:57PM My Ram Tough rug made it into the 2012 Celebrations. I am very excited. I will be taking it to Sauder Village is August. It took about three months to do the 3' x 5' rug. I do not have a place for it in my home yet. I learned much from doing this rug.
Wednesday, April 18, 2012 at 7:40PM I have been dyeing yards of wool lately and had time to finish some projects from previous McGown Workshop classes. One is a stained glass project. In stained glass, one needs to hook the wool in order and spot and casserole-dyed wool is the most common type of wool to use. One must hook the leading wool first and this can be the same cut of wool or smaller.
The second project was part of April Love from Jane Flynn's pattern. Since my husband has an interest in banjo's, this little girl got dressed up in her western shirt and she received a banjo. The original project had a winter muff and only one hand was showing. This is how I personalized this picture.
Friday, February 3, 2012 at 6:14PM I have been working with materials to come up with hooked journals. Journals are very popular, especially art journals, so why not hooked journals. I have made two travel journals and one creative stitches journal I can use for teaching and a handy resource. Below is my creative hooking journal. Inside I have numerous samples of creative stitches (Canadian stitches) and then instructions and illustrations on how to do the stitch. I bound the book with tied together chop sticks which I painted white.This journal comes in very handy when wanting quick information 
Top 10 Reasons to Make Hooked Journals:
Easy project to take with you wherever you travel.
Great way to improve your art.
Wonderful teaching tool.
Lots of ways to explore embellishments and alternative materials.
Many different forms of finishing your journals.
A great method to get all those ideas for rugs floating in your head down on cloth
without making a total commitment to a big piece.
Creative way to play with patterns and design and not feel bad if it does not work.
Fun way to use your scraps.
Opportunity to explore ideas and problem solve.
Hooked journals take up less room for packing and/or shipping to a rug show.
Thursday, December 29, 2011 at 12:15AM I have been using up some polar fleece I had on hand for quite some time. I made a large rug for my bathroom which has a sand pail theme. I also did a proddy rug for in front of the shower. I was surprised how much polar fleece each rug took but it was worth it because they feel so good on the feet.
Wednesday, December 28, 2011 at 11:58PM Before I taught in California I had a class with Susan Feller. I did the Queen of Games wall hanging. I learned how to apply the wool to the hooked piece. I also did needle felting, needle punch, die cutting the puzzle pieces, and embossing of the velvet skirt and the leather tickets.
Denise Hund at Little River with her version of Jane Olsen using my doll kit. Gret Job!