TWO FINISHED RUGS FROM PENNINSULA GUILD

THIS IS FROM BETTY M

THIS IS FROM SUSAN K

REITER RETREAT AT GOLDBAR - OCTOBER WEEKEND 2016

There were 40+ women having fun and hooking up a storm at Camp Huston in goldbar, Washington. The weather was mild and mostly sunny. Thursday some of us hit the local tavern and ate burgers. We also played "hooker poker" or "left-right-center" game and used it to celebrate a birthday with Gunnel Casey who has been coming to the retreat for all 13 years of it. Here is the celebration and some of the rugs on display.

CLASS AT WOODINVILLE AND RUG SHOW-OCTOBER

I attended a class given by Kathy Clark on how to design a antique primitive pattern and techniques in how to make it look old. It was very good. The next day I vended at the rug show which Irene and Lianne put on every year. They are such great hostess and it is fun attending the show.

Kathy Clark

Rug show lunch

Tanya Grahams beautiful abstract rug

My vending space

Peninsula Rugmakers Guild Los Gatos, CA

I had the honor of traveling to California to teach the rug hookers from the Peninsula Guild. Very nice and talented group of women. The camp is near Los Gatos. They had a quick rug show on Thursday and I was able to take some pictures. I did not get all the pictures I wanted from the show. Here are some of them.

I had 18 in the class and we were all in a well light room. The camp is at a formner boy's school run by the Catholic Chuirch. It is a very nice setting.

Here are a few of the works in progress.

Save & Close

I did not get good enough picturew of the other rugs to include in this report.

Chatum Rose - not sure of the name

This is one of the rugs I just finished binding. It was taught at North Central and is a new pattern from Honey Bee Hive. It was fun to color plan and hook.

Great Idea for Teaching

These were displayed by Brigitta Phy from Jane Olsen's materials. I love them.

It is June and time for Teachers Workshop in Eugene, Oregon

It takes Katie and me about 5-6 hours to drive to Eugene. I have been attending for 12 years now and we still sometimes take the wrong exit. Go figure. I am the director and I like to have a theme each year and this year it was Super Hooker. I did come up with several outfits to enhance my presentations each morning. We gather together to challenge ourselves, learn new techniques and reinforce the skills we already posses. We also have the challenge to keep it interesing and to keep up with what is current in rug hooking with patterns and assignments. It is a wonderful group of ladies who gather in Eugene each year and massive amounts of talent.

These are the classes I took this year.

Water and weather: Taught by Joyce Jordan

This is a smaller version of a rug taught by Beryl Jenkins

I took a fingering class from Carol Fegles:  Results were:

The rug show was great and I have lots of photos. These are two projects which were popular because so many came back this year.

Other rugs I saw at the show:

Suzan Ferrans taught this again but redid the rug. I love both versions but this one really caught my eye.

This one was taught in the Textured Geometrics by Kathy Stephens who took a geologicalapproach to the hooking. Very interesting having the heights on the rug.

Polly cCark passed away this year and this is one I taught last year. She was a wonderful person and rug hooker and will be missed by me so much. She always had a kind word for everyone and I loved her unique color choices. We had a little display of her rugs in the show.

A class taught on how to hook black. This person (?) got the lesson.

A new pattern which Suzi Jones did in a short time when she received it from North Central/

Susan Kleidon's rug ended up on the cover of the workshop report.  love the embellishments and the basket.

Our dining experience at the dining hall up the street from the dorm hall we stay in. They also have Japanese sushi plates available as well as local ice cream. Yum

Guatemala Rug Finsihed and Bound with Woven strip

I finished the rug I designed with Yolanda from Guatemala when on the wonderful tour to their country. When we visited one of the houses the ladies sold me a long strip of weaving which I applied to the edge of my rug to bind it. I like how it added to the memory of the trip. I encouage all rug hookers to do this tour at least once if not more times. It was fantastic.

The two birds in the center are myself and my Guatemalan teacher. This is made of t-shirt materials from their version of the thrift stores. I did find a shirt in the US that matched the background so I finished it with that piece. For me the t-shirts did not go as fast as the wool strips but it gives a very pleasant look and with practice, I could hook it faster.

CASWELL QUILT SQUARE

I received this pattern from Laura Pierce. It is one of the many squares from the Caswell Quilt. Laura will be displaying the squares this winter at her rug camp-Little River. I used a progression of light to dark in the background and the reverse in the foreground. I did this for my design class I am taking from Joen Wolfrom in Pt Gamble. It is a good class. I dyed a beige with the purple dye. It did not get as light as I would have liked but I wanted it to look a little aged.

FIRST PIECE FINISHED FROM THE ZENTANGLE CLASS

Katie Knoelke was the first one finished with her Zentangle rug. I love how it turned out and the colors she used. She is a speedy hooker.

DEERFIELD PANEL - CREWEL DESIGN

I received this pattern (Charco Pattern/Honey Bee Hive) as a teachers' workshop pattern.  I started it in some dark colors and never got too far. I had a piano bench and decided, well after I had the piece almost done, that it would be used to cover the bench. Consequently I added to the width and cut it off to fit the bench. When fitting the pattern to the piece you are covering, you must have the piece ready with all of its padding and form. Jay did this for me. I had to unhook parts of it to make the pattern fit the corners. The background was dyed with a little bit of all the colors in the piece. The colors I used were from my stash so the only wool I dyed was for the background. I like how the background came out. I just need to refinish the bench before I screw it on.

WEDDING RUG FOR MY SON AND HIS WIFE

My eldest son was married in Cancun, Mx. in 2014. I finally designed and hooked a large rug for the happy couple. Betsy likes mermaids and the sea so that is the theme I went with. She has a microphone because she is a singer and is holding a paint brush as she also is an artist. My son makes films, boxes and surfs. I added these things to the underwater scene and made him into a merman. I hope they like the rug. I did add sparkles to the mermaid tails.

NORTH CENTRAL MCGOWN TEACHERS' WORKSHOP-IOWA

I was invited to North Central and spent two weeks on the road and in Iowa. I rode with Suzi Jones to Newton, Iowa, former home of Maytag. We spent three nights going and coming from Portland, Oregon. On the way we visited with Chris Ward and her Llamas in Idaho and Sue Cunningham and her husband in Wyoming. It was a treat at both places.

Here are some of the rugs shown in the library in Newton. I especially liked how one teacher used the ombre to create different values and textures. Enjoy.

PUGET SOUND RUG SCHOOL

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This March we had three teachers, Susan Feller, Laura Pierce and Diane Learmonth. Everyone had a good time and here are some of the faces in progress from my class with Laura.

Here are pictures of classmates at work and discussion.

Here are some rugs at the show and tell.

TRIP TO GUATEMALA IN FEBRUARY WITH MULTICOLORES

This was a wonderful tour with Mary Ann Wise and her partners. It is a 10 day tour with all items, (room, meals, and transportation)taken care of in the package. We hooked with the Mayan women for four days. They designed and color planned our rugs. We toured and saw many places around Lake Atitlan. My husband went with us as he also hooks and speaks Spanish. It was an awesome experience and I would encourage anyone slightly interested to go and do it. The group that went were mostly from the Pacific Northwest and from our rug school - Puget Sound Rug School. Some of the ladies stayed to travel to the famous ruins in the northwest of the country. We were able to visit their village and communicate without much help.

To contact them and learn more about it the mail is rughooking.guatemala@gmail.com

website is www.multicolores.org

Thirteenth Year at Reiter Retreat-Goldbar

There are 50 women hooking up a wool dust storm here in the northern part of the Pacific Northwest. Goldbar is on Highway 2 on one's way to Steven's Pass which goes over the Cascade Mountains into Eastern Washington.  The retreat runs from Sunday until 11 a.m on Friday. Good food, friends and laughter.. We have a rug show-vendors-and a throw down on Thursday. Everyone looks forward to coming up and hook.

  

SECOND WEDNESDAY AT MY HOUSE

It was a smaller turn out of hookers and braiders today at the house. We had a treat with Katie bringing onion soup for lunch. 

Carol joined us and showed off her hit and miss braided rug with fur, velvet and other materials braided into the rug. She is fast and very good at braiding.

 

Katie and Judi are working on their zen inspired rugs. Katie is amost done and Judi is coming along nicely.

Karen is ready to put a braid around her rooster rug. It turned out good and she drew it herself.

MORE ZEN-INSPIRED CLASS

I traveled to Mesa, Arizona, the first of the year to teach the zen-inspired class. The trip was so easy and Southwest Airlines allows 2 50lbs bags for free so I took an abundance of wool. Carol Miller was wonderful in getting me to the hotel, taking care of all my needs and wants, and being a wonderful host. The class was held at a beautiful country club. The weather was unseasonable as it was rainy and cool but it made me feel at home. The students were great and they eagerly followed my instructions for working on patterns so come up with an original pattern of their own. The second day the patterns were made and students started color planning their rugs/pillows. By the third day I believe Faith had her pillow almost done. I am a fast hooker but she might be able to beat me. I forgot my camera at the hotel so I only got pictures of the first day. The trip home was efficient and easy and I had a good time teaching in Arizona.

 

DAY AND NIGHT RUG FINISHED

 

This rug was from the Honey Bee Hive Charco patterns received at Western Teachers' Workshop in 2015. It was taught by Lynne Howard. This is my interpretation of the pattern. I changed the sun face and moon face and used textures in my stash to blend in the skies. I used the higgedly piggedly hooking on the rays of the sun and added a few more rays. I did about three spot dyes for the wool used on the rays. The rug was done in a 7 and 8 cut. It was a fun rug to hook and it went fast. I whipped the edges with different yarns to match the pattern colors.

 

MY EMBELLISHMENT RUG FROM THE CLASS I TEACH

This is a rug I tried to embellish and make sense to anyone. It has faux shirring, quillies, shirred, inset, yarn, wrapped wire, beads, needle felting, embroidery, applique, silk, cotton, velour, stuffed objects and proggy.I learned a lot from this piece. When I teach embellishments it takes boxes of materials and equipment but it is a labor of love to see what people do with it and the inspiration it creates.