Casserole Dyeing and Hooking without a Pattern

I ripped out my second attempt at hooking with really wide strips and decided to just play. I found myself hooking a person, who turned into a teacher of rug hooking. Then I had to hook her students. So far, I have two of them hooked.
I'm not sure if this will become a round chair pad or what, but I'm certainly having fun with it - lots more fun than those hit or miss round mats.


I've changed the shape of the "teacher" several times, but she still is pretty strange - sort of a tough task master I guess.

The first student is a round, fluffy one - sort of a common type of hooker.

The second one is the thin, maybe nervous, very precise hooker - probably hooking a room-size rug with size 2 strips. I haven't come up with the third hooker yet, I'm waiting for her to show herself.

I put some stainless steel pans up for sale yesterday, on Rughookers Bulletin Board and on Wool Snippets Marketplace. I acquired them, sort of accidentally, yesterday at an auction. The auction was put on by Braun and Helmer, my favorite auctioneers - well, actually, the sons of my favorite auctioneers. It was mainly an auction for farm equipment, so I went with the idea in the back of my head that I might be able to pick up some replacements for my antique haying equipment.

There were some other things besides the farm equipment filling out the auction - there was a huge bear rug, and I turned around once while looking at the display of goods and almost put my head in that boar's mouth. Ugh!

I enjoy watching the men at farm auctions - they always take some time to tinker with the engines. This 1970 truck was a favorite gathering place. I enjoyed seeing the truck - it used to belong to the Dexter Fire Department - it came to my farm when a neighbor called them and said it looked like I had a grass fire that was getting away from me. I was a bit irked when the firemen showed up because I was sure I had the fire under control - but it was nice to know they were available if I was wrong. That was the last time I cleared up the roadside weeds with fire. Anyway, I think the truck probably found a good home and it won't surprise me to see it in one of our local parades sometime soon.

There was a long table full of restaurant equipment - turns out the man who was selling his haying equipment is an executive chef. There was a great big huge stainless steel pot and I was picturing filling it was ten yards of wool for dyeing when I realized some other people were also admiring it. I chatted with them a little and learned they had some kind of organic non-profit and were contemplating getting the pot to feed the poor - kind of kicked me away from my plan. I was still thinking about them when the auctioneer started the bidding on the stainless steel pans that would be perfect for casserole dyeing. I figured I could use a couple, so I jumped into the bidding but was distracted by thinking about those non-profit people - well, anyway, somehow, instead of a couple, I ended up with 23 stainless steel pans - quite a few more than I can use. So, I put together my thoughts about how the pans could be used and offered the pans for sale with an instruction sheet - 13 of them were spoken for before lunch today. whew! maybe it wasn't such a big mistake.