More George

George is the sweetest dog. He's half border collie and half gordon setter - I think he inherited intelligence from the first breed and gentleness from the second. He's thirteen years old and not going to have another birthday. When we moved into my mother's home, she claimed him as her own. When we visited her in a number of different nursing homes, George was always a welcome visitor - sometimes other residents wanted to pet him so much it took forever to get him down a hallway.

He's had a pretty decent life - when he first came to me as a puppy, I thought he'd be a small dog so I cuddled him in my lap and ignored his great big paws until my lap wasn't big enough to hold him. The photo above was taken last spring when he'd been shaved to make it easier to treat a skin problem - I'm glad his long hair has grown back. Unfortunately, he's been growing more than hair. I wish I could put him in my lap now.

GEORGE

June Mikoryak's Yankee Ingenuity

Well, the photos are proof that my memory fails me. Good thing June was nice enough to go out to her car and pull out this rug to show me the day before our class at Sauder Village. However, even though this is not my favorite color plan, the central motif is anchored to the rug and not floating above the background the way mine seems to be. I had remembered June's background as having scattered yellow strips, obviously remembered the wrong color and the wrong placement for them - they are mostly placed in a very orderly fashion, not randomly scattered like mine.

I think I need to rethink my background. In the meantime, I guess I'll hook some corners while I watch the Superbowl ads.

Yankee Ingenuity Progress

This is the current state of my Yankee Ingenuity hooking. The photo shows the background as more gray than it really is - it has a lot of different colors in it, green and splashes of orange the most prominent. I'm afraid it's going to look disjointed with the central motif floating above the background. Maybe getting the corners hooked will help a little...

Eggs and the Barn Man

These are the eggs I gathered this morning - just before the Barn Man again scared me half to death.I think the Barn Man is going to have to move again. Maybe I'll take him up to the store and let him scare the people in Hamburg!

Pool Man by a Tree

The fellow in the photo used to stand by my hot tub/pool, the one we have removed from my soon-to-be sun room. He held my towels for me. More than once I've seen delivery men try to talk to him through the window and I firmly believe he chased away a number of people with ill intentions . When Joe was working on my new wall, he cleared the debris out of the room and put this poor guy out in the snow. He was standing by the tree for a couple days, until he scared me half to death twice because Gibby barked and I looked out the window to see a strange man standing in the yard. I decided to stop scaring myself and put him in the barn where he could be peering out of the barn door and scare away people who don't want to be seen.

I had forgotten how heavy he is, but I finally got him situated just inside the barn and forgot about him - until I was doing my chores in the stallion barn and stepped into the tack room - and saw him out of the corner of my eye. There is nothing scarier late at night when you are all alone in a quiet barn than a silent man just standing there!

I can see the headline now: Local Farmer Scared to Death by Mannequin

French Doors

My new french doors have been installed - well, sort-of installed, there's no hardware, trim or finishing touches yet, but the doors are there instead of the pseudo- plywood from the back of the cupboard that was donated to me through Freecycle Ann Arbor.

I have to keep boxes and chairs in front of the doors to keep Gibby from pushing them open, and I put one of my wool treasures - a gold wool blanket - at the bottom of the doors as a cold barrier. It's very cold here, been below zero all weekend, but I've still been able to keep the temperature of the house (well, three rooms) up in a livable range - french doors and wool blankets are on my list of the good things on earth.

Clog Update

I'm working on another pair of clogs - using multi-colored yarn this time. I'm planning to use U-glue from Joann's and glue this pair to some hard soles. I think I'll use flip-flop soles since I haven't been able to find any inexpensive crocs. This pair of blue clogs was made using the unchanged **original pattern - it lets the heel area rise a little higher and I think gives the clogs a "mukluk" shape. I wore this pair last night while playing Scrabble with some friends, letting my feet do the final drying of the sole, since they were felted just the night before - they were so comfortable I forgot I was wearing them and the soles were completely dry by evening's end.

I'm calling this pair "Possums". The cuff was purled with a strand of novelty yarn and the main part of the clogs were knitted with the kind of yarn used for fisherman's sweaters. It became a little fuzzier than the Paton's yarn used for the other clogs.

**There is a change that keeps the heel lower, making it easier to slide a foot into the clog. This change is especially appropriate if the clogs are going to be glued to a hard sole - with the unchanged pattern, it's best if the sole is flexible while working the foot into it. The change is at row 33. Replace pattern row 33 with this row: slip1, K12(10,11/12,13), K2tog., K1, ssk, K12(10,11/12,13), ssk, K2tog., K to end of row. Do not turn and skip all other pattern rows to cuff.

Do not knit second sole, E-Glue to croc or other sole and clamp down all around.

A Wall at Last!

AT LAST! For the first time since I moved back home, my home is entirely enclosed!
It's only temporary and it isn't pretty, but it holds in the heat. Yahooooooo!

After living with a completely open wall since mid-December, I called my builder friend and told him I feel like I'm a homeless person living in my home, that the cold is unbearable. Poor guy, it never occurred to him that the floor for the old pool room was a deck with spaces between the boards, definitely not built to hold out a Michigan winter - he came right out and used my chicken coop plywood to board up the wall - after measuring for the french doors I'm going to buy at Lowe's tomorrow. Now I can get the temperature in the living room above 60 degrees. Nice to be able to sit without being covered by blankets - maybe now I'll be able to get back to hooking.

Felting Knitted Clogs

In Nova Scotia, I watched Marliss and Barb working on knitted/felted clogs and decided I wanted to make some for Christmas presents. They are easy to knit on size 13 needles with double strands of 100% wool worsted weight yarn. When the knitting is finished, the clogs are HUGE.

The clogs are then washed in hot water in a washing machine with a little soap - the felting usually shows up after about ten minutes of washing. Then the gift recipient takes the funny, slippery, soapy blobs of yarn out of the machine and sees for the first time that they might have received a real gift. Then, the clogs are checked every few minutes to see if they have reached the perfect custom fit.



The washing machine shouldn't be allowed to go into a spin cycle or the shape might be stretched out. The soap can be rinsed out of the clogs in cold water - something you wouldn't do if you weren't felting.



The clogs can be rolled in a towel to help with drying.




Then the clogs should be carefully shaped - when they are left to dry, they will retain the dried shape. I found that the yarn I used tended to become fuzzy and the fuzz could be patted down at this point.


Plastic bags inserted in the toes help to retain the "cloggy" shape while the clogs dry.

It's important to play with the shape while the clogs are still wet. It generally takes two or more days to dry. Once dry and worn for a while, they will conform to the wearer's feet and become left and right clogs. They can be washed in cold water like fine woolens and they can be re-felted if they stretch out after worn for a long time.

It was fun giving these as gifts because the gift giving was then followed by another visit to do the felting - sort of a two-party gift!

The Hole in the Wall

Debris pulled off of wall - will make nice cedar kindling for the new woodstove that will heat this room.


Looking at the wall from the inside.


In the upper left, the hole into the upstairs room shows. The two by four is holding up the side of the house until some supports are in place.


Wall with the new header.


Joe uses his truck bed for a work table.


The photos show the progress on my dining room wall. Soon, the window space will turn into a double-door between the dining room and the swimming pool room turned sunporch/woodstove room. Looking at the old wall today I learned that my house has had three outside renovations - first clapboard, then fancy clapboard, then cedar shakes. The cedar shakes were old when I moved to the farm forty years ago - they had at least two, probably three layers of paint on them (20 years per layer, sixty years of paint plus my forty= 100 years for the cedar shakes.) If the first layer of clapboard lasted 30-35 years and the second 30-40 more years, 160 years, we could date the house back to 1835 to 1840, which fits with the sqare, hand-forged nails in some of the construction. Since factory made nails appeared in 1850, I've always dated parts of the house pre-1850 and other parts post-1850 - the post 1850 construction has a mix of hand forged and factory made nails like the carpenter had some new nails added to a supply of older nails. Anyway, if I have to live with a hole in a wall I might as well play amateur archaeologist.

Keep Calm and Hook On

LizoftheLake sent me a great website - a site that explains the Keep Calm and Carry On poster. I had heard about the poster, saw one in JoAnn's (although it was all wrong - black letters on white background with no crown), and then received the email from Liz. When the same thing is brought to mind so many times, I wonder if that means I should be considering a rug pattern. The original was printed in case of invasion of the British Isles during World War II - with King Edward's crown on it - but the posters were never used and were destroyed after the war. A British bookseller found a copy and reproduced it for sale. Liz's website allows users to generate their own posters - hence, the hook on above.

http://www.keepcalm-o-matic.co.uk:80/

Chicken Rescue

I usually get on and off the expressway about a mile north of my road so I can avoid the traffic on my own road. One day last week, I was heading for the expressway when out of the corner of my eye I thought I saw a flock of chickens. Chickens move differently from other birds and their odd motion caught my eye. What was unusual was they were in the deserted parking lot of a torn down gas station. The area behind the gas station used to be a lovely little piece of nature with a small pond and a natural wooded area beyond, but now it's just a weed patch with a lot of detritus left by thoughtless people. I was on an errand and didn't stop or think about those chickens until later.

When I was on my way home, I saw two young men standing in the parking lot watching the chickens. I drove past, then decided to turn back and offer my help. I thought maybe the boys were dealing with an escaped flock. It turned out that the boys, Sean and Dakota, were just watching and wanting to pet a chicken. It looked like there were at least a dozen chickens running through the weeds and some of them looked injured. It was impossible to determine the breed of the chickens, they were kind of a motley crew, some white, speckled, golden, and black.

We decided to try to catch as many as we could, so I drove home for some supplies. Those very nice boys knew nothing at all about chickens, but they worked really hard for a couple hours while we tried different ways to catch or trap the chickens. Finally, when the sun was going down, the chickens started roosting and burrowing into clumps of grass, and we started catching them. The boys couldn't hold onto any of the poor hens until Sean found some gloves in his car, then the gloves made him brave enough to hang on. We caught five and scared away quite a few. One white rooster and a couple of hens were the only ones roosting above the ground and they were in a willow shrub just a few feet above the weeds.

I took five hens home that night and then went back by myself the next night. It was really cold and really dark, in a place that seemed really dangerous. A young girl was attacked there and dragged into the woods a year or two ago and once I started thinking about that it seemed really foolish to spend much time there alone. I caught three more hens, plucked two right out of the willow bush by giving the rooster a shove on his chest so he lost his balance and dropped down a branch. I surely do not need another rooster, but I'm sorry I didn't take him. The next day, all of the chickens were gone. I found only a few piles of feathers.

Yesterday, I visited with some people (freecyclers who generously gave me some wood for my chicken house)who live just down the road from that place - I got to meet their potbelly pigs, all four living in an apartment with two adults and two cats. They said the coyotes had been really loud a couple nights ago. Well, I'm glad that at least eight hens survived. They are living in my stallion barn - there isn't enough sunlight in there, but I thought they should be isolated at least temporarily.

Now that I've seen the chickens living in the barn, I'm wondering why I decided to build a chicken house, I should probably just move all of the chickens into the barn - I could put the hens all in the double stallion stall and put the roosters across the way in one of the 12x12 stalls. They would be warmer all winter and it would be easier to care for them. I can even heat that barn if necessary.

Basement Stairs

I now have basement stairs!!!

I can't remember when a walk down into my basement was easy - the stairs have always been rocky - starting with a landing a foot lower than the doorway to get to it, and ending with bottom steps created by stacked boards that floated away whenever the basement flooded - but, NOW! Yahoo! I have real steps built correctly and beautifully by a real carpenter! However, I have only looked at them, haven't gone down them yet.

I had a rather bad incident a few days ago with the old basement stairs. I left for a few hours (went to a political potluck gathering at vegetarian co-op house - which should tell you it was basically on campus in Ann Arbor - where it seems grad students either look the same or are the same as when I was in grad school.) Since I was going to be in Ann Arbor, where every second citizen is on the alert for dogs left to suffocate in cars, I left all four dogs home together. Bad decision.

When I got home, I was greeted at the gate by the cats and at the door by the dogs - well, by some of the dogs. Blue was missing. I looked all around the house and couldn't find her. Then I heard her cries. She was down in the basement. I was pretty sure Gibby, in his excitement rushing in and out through the doggy door, had knocked Blue down the basement stairs - and Blue, with her blindness and deafness, was in a panic, bumping into the new wall and getting stuck under the stairs, spinning in circles. I went down the stairs, got to the last existing stairstep while hanging onto the handrail, and the step twisting, with the sides breaking loose from the wall - then the handrail pulled loose, and I was suddenly on the basement floor. I got Blue and tossed her up to the secure steps, and then realized I probably couldn't get out. As each day goes on, I get stiffer and stiffer and can barely lift my legs, so I was seeing myself stuck in the basement until help could come. I thought about calling 911, but then I remembered how the volunteer firemen around my store would laugh about the old or fat ladies who were stuck in bathtubs and had to be pulled out - I could hear them laughing about the fat old lady who got stuck in her basement - and somehow I climbed out of that basement.

I called Joe first thing in the morning and begged him to build some stairs for me.

Cats and Roosters Everywhere!

What fun to walk out of the house in the morning - cats and roosters everywhere - running in my direction. The Barred Rock rooster is just like a dog, he follows me all over and he is soooo big - I'm really pleased that all of the roosters are nice, at least nice to me and nice to the cats, they certainly weren't nice to Old Rooster or the hens.

Tonight, two of the roosters flew up into the pine tree - I think that's the best place for them to roost. If they're going to continue to be free-range roosters I think I'll have to teach them to go into the barn - years ago a wonderful rooster used to live in the rafters. It would be fun to have five roosters living in the rafters.

I almost started hooking tonight, but the energy to go outside one more time, to get my hooking bag out of the motorhome, just seemed to escape me. I had already run in and out a lot while cooking my dinner in the campfire (pork chops do not need to stay in the coals as long as baked potatoes - even though they are double thick and stuffed.) This was my Majong afternoon at the library, then I went for a walk in the woods to gather some firewood to cook my dinner, and my legs were worn out. So, maybe I'll take my hooking to the quilting group tomorrow, if I wake up early enough - but my knitting bag is all set up and less trouble. I would like to have some ATCs started so I can hook them at Thrums and Chums on Saturday.

I'm very upset that bullying has occurred blatantly in my old school district - when I taught there we would have nipped that kind of nastiness in the bud. I can't figure out how teachers have so much less control these days. A fourteen year old girl was horribly harrassed while waiting to testify about being raped by an 18 year old classmate and neighbor. Maybe teachers are so concerned about being sued they are afraid to say anything to the kids - so a young girl is dead and the school district is a likely target for a wrongful death suit. Something is really wrong in a society that lets any of these things happen. I feel like all my years of teaching kids right from wrong were just wasted.

Rooster Increase

After turning the roosters into free-range critters and seeing how happy the hens are to be able to leave their roosts and come out of hiding, I thought I would never acquire another rooster - until I got a call from my dentist today.

I drove out to the small town of Gregory to get my hair cut by my favorite barber and on the way home stopped in another town, Pinckney, to visit a laundromat. A friend told me it was much nicer than the one closer to the farm. While putting my clothes in a dryer, I got a phone call from my dentist's office with a "strange request". Since I had just been there for most of Monday afternoon, having a new crown fitted, I thought there must be something wrong with my teeth, but it turned out they were having chicken problems.

A pair of chickens, a hen and a rooster, had recently appeared in their parking lot. The children from the daycare that shares the building were having fun watching the chickens but the adults were worried about the children getting pecked. So, their strange request was, would I come and take the chickens away. Well, I need another rooster like a hole in the head, but I agreed to take them.

After the first hour, all I had learned was that the hen was really leery and very fast and the rooster was less fearful and not easily tricked. I tried to lure them into a box with the Cheerios the daycare children had provided, but they were smart enough to get close and eat all the Cheerios they could reach without going into the box. After the next hour of unsuccessful stalking I thought I'd have to wait until sundown when the chickens would try to roost, but three people volunteered to help and the daycare provided us with some blankets. The rooster was eventually trapped by the playground fence and a blanket was tossed over him while two people did belly flops trying to grab him. We put him into a box and then went in serious earnest after the hen.

The hen was very clever about going into bushes and clumps of branches, and then she started going up into the branches - and that was the beginning of the end. She jumped up to about our head height while her bushy brushpile was surrounded by the four of us. I yelled that she was about to go higher and Duane jumped up onto a loose clump of dead branches. As the hen took off to fly higher, Duane caught her by one foot. She struggled, but he hung on and got both legs in his hand. I couldn't believe he could get down safely and still hold on to her, but he did.

I took the box of chickens home and let them lose inside the chicken yard. The hen jumped out almost immediately, but the rooster stayed in the box while he listened to the free-range roosters doing their nightly crowing. I think he was intimidated until he realized they were fenced out while he was fenced in. I turned the heat lamp on and spent a few minutes building a roost for the Barred Rock rooster who seems to be too heavy to fly like the Americaunas - some of which are roosting on top of the chicken house and one is up quite high in a pine tree. When I went back to see how the new ones were doing, they were both inside the hen house and the rooster was balancing on the edge of a nest box - looking very content. My old rooster, with the injured head, was on a corner roost, hiding his head behind a hen - he doesn't look like he feels well at all.

Roosters on the Loose

I now have half a dozen free-range roosters. For several days, my two year old Aracauna rooster and my favorite hen have been hiding in between a tarp and the back wall of a large dog kennel/cage in the middle of the chicken run. The hens have been roosting day and night in the nesting area, and the roosters have been patrolling the whole yard like a marauding army. I have been putting some food at the back of the cage hoping the two innocents would eat and today I tried to get some water to them - then I decided it was just stupid to let some roosters I never wanted destroy the whole flock, so I started letting them out into the yard. It didn't take long before they all followed each other out into the free world - with the cats. Some of the cats looked the roosters over pretty well, but the roosters ignored the cats.

I had to get scissors to free the rooster and the red hen. Once they could get out, they moved so fast I didn't even see them fly all the way around the chicken yard over to the food dish. The rooster has some pretty serious pecking injuries to his head, but I'm hoping he'll be okay. I watched the free-range roosters for a long time, but I didn't stay with them when the sun was going down. I didn't want to feel sorry for them when they couldn't return to their old roosts. I don't know where they're roosting. Too bad they weren't hens like they were supposed to be.

Gibby's in Trouble

Today was a surprisingly busy day, although it started out as a "no-plan, nothing-to-do" kind of day. I decided to ignore all the farm work and house work waiting for me and count this weekend as part of my vacation, so I started the day with a good book (the new one by Dan Brown) at the Burger King. When I left the BK, I remembered I needed to visit my bank, but I had to stop at my store to pick up some paperwork first. When I drove into the village, I remembered the little church across the street from my store was having it's annual rummage sale - a soup and salad lunch and a bagful of ten cent books later, I was again on my way to the bank. The bank is inside my favorite grocery store, so I had some nut, taco, humus, salsa, and teriyaki chicken samples while I walked around the store before doing my banking. The banking business took quite a while, but at least this bank has comfortable chairs and nice privacy booths. With both a church lunch and a store sample run literally under my belt, I made a quick visit to a new gift shop. I'm always amazed when people start up new businesses in this economy. I wasn't in the market for gifts, but the store had some cute things, things I could give as small gifts if a reason arises. Then back to the farm. I called some friends and agreed to meet them for an early dinner, but I had a little time before time to leave, so I finally got some paper and scissors and made a cut-out of the pattern I'd like to use for my Artist Trading Cards. I'll have to hook some before I know how viable the pattern is - I'm hoping to hook it in a 6, but I may have to go smaller.

Dinner was a surprise, we went to a Japanese restaurant in Brighton. I haven't been in downtown Brighton for several years and found that the stores I knew are all gone, replaced by upscale artsy stores (one store has only lollipops and hard candy made on the premises). I ordered a boring, but safe, chicken teriyaki, but was able to sample some more adventurous suchi and octopus - interesting, but I found that most of the flavors were in the sauces.

We went back to my friend's home for dessert and a dice game, then I headed back to the farm. The cats met me at the gate and then the dogs barked me into the house. First thing inside, I fed the dogs, and immediately Blue and Gibby fought over their food - I yelled and swung a light-weight little broom at them, since it looked like Gibby was really going to hurt Blue - and I fell flat on my face. I don't know if I tripped over something or just fell for no reason, but I landed pretty hard - starting in the kitchen and ending up sprawled in the dining room. There was a while when I thought I wouldn't be able to get up and I used that time to tell Gibby was an irritating and foolish dog he is - he hid behind the quilt that blocks the door into the room he runs through to go outside. This is not the first time Gibby has attacked Blue and he's gone after George quite a few times, but this is the first time I ended up on the floor looking up at him - seeing the last flash of his agression leave his face. This kind of behavior has to end, one way or another.

Starting at the Beginning

Many years ago, my mother and I worked in the same school district. I was a classroom teacher and she was a much respected school social worker. We had long discussions about students with problems and one of our discussions lasted for many months - it was about helping children learn to read by taking them back to the beginning, the beginning of their learning - teaching them to crawl all over again. The idea was new and quite popular for a while, but I haven't heard anyone mention it in years - however, I think that's what I'm doing with my housekeeping - I'm starting back at the beginning - living the primitive way people lived here back in the beginning. For the last two nights, I cooked my dinner in the coals of a fire in my backyard - sort of like being on a camping trip. Last night, it was only a sweet potato, but what a delicious treat - it was so well cooked it was almost like it was melted. Tonight, I made a "Girl Scout Stew" - chopped up potatoes, parsnips, carrots, onion, and ground beef - enough to share with the dogs and have for dinner again tomorrow. I've cleaned up most of the sticks and twigs laying around in the yard and I've burned all of the smaller pieces of wood that were dredged out of my basement before the new wall was built, so I'm going to have to start gathering firewood if I'm going to continue to have my primitive meals. Since I originally learned to cook over campfires, I'm repeating the beginning, learning to crawl again.

Election Day

I love to vote in my township. When I first started voting here, a couple generations ago, we had only our townhall building for a polling place. The townhall looked just like a white frame one room school house, and it probably started it's life as a schoolhouse. It was so small that only the people actively voting could fit inside, so everyone else stood in a long line down the wooden steps and out into the dirt road. Often, we waited a long time in rain and snow. Some kind neighbors often brought cookies or cider and doughnuts and passed them down the line. It was the one chance each year to meet and greet new neighbors - and in those days we counted people as neighbors even if they lived a couple miles apart. About ten years ago, the old townhall was retired and moved into a little village of historic buildings, on property purchased from a wonderful horsewoman and artist named May Mast, who lived into her late nineties. When she was in her eighties, she was still painting giant murals on the sides of her barns and every building on her farm, including the little cabins that had housed children when she ran a summer camp. The historic village has been built in the pasture where May kept two old horses, a leopard spotted Appaloosa and a big fat shiny black Tennessee Walker. The new town hall was built in the adjoining pasture. Now, we have grown so much we have three precincts, all voting in the new town hall. When I fill out my name and address and hand over the slip with my driver's license, I do it at a table where half a dozen women do the paper work - and all of them have last names that are the same as road names in our township. I pass through to a voting booth in minutes, no long line or doughnuts anymore, but I always look for the old cigar box. For a moment today, I thought it was missing, then I spotted it on the floor behind one of the poll workers. It's an old tin cigar box, with old blue and gold paint. When it's open for access to the pens and pencils inside, the lid shows the five cent cigar price in Victorian gold letters. That cigar box has been present at every election since I started voting in Webster Township back in 1972. With all of the other changes, that cigar box represents a permanence to me, a permanence of rural values, which include neighborliness and the right to choose the people who run our government.

Freedom at Last!

From one house,


To another




After six months of mourning, pain, and loss, I have finally moved on - and moved back - back to my farm, my home of homes. It will take quite a while to recover my home within the old farmhouse, but this work will be pure selfish pleasure compared to the job I have just finished at my mother's house. I never consciously realized how full Mother's house was - full of physical content and full of warm, generous memories. For the last month, I spent each day with thoughts and memories of my mother, my father, and my grandmother- all people who deserve to be remembered with love. I found a rug that was made by my grandmother, probably about sixty years ago, and another rug made by my mother, probably about thirty years ago. Neither of them are hooked rugs, but they will have places of honor with my hooked rug collection.

Next week, starting Sunday, we go off of Daylight Savings Time - back to days that are dark in the morning and dark in the evening. I'm going to limit my work on the house to daylight hours, so I should then be able to get back to working on my Sauder Village rug. I'm also planning a pattern to use for my ATCs (Artist Trading Cards)- I'm anxious to get those started.

Ah, it's so nice to be able to plan my own days - free at last, free at last!

Second Nova Scotia Slide Show

This slide show includes rugs that may be displayed at the Hooked Rug Museum of North America collected by Suzanne and Hugh Conrod and a second collection of rugs that are in a private collection in Nova Scotia. I have hesitated to be more specific about the second collection for the sake of privacy and safety.

There are some unusual rugs in this slide show: one is an example of a proddy-type rug made for generations on Tancook Island, just off the South Shore of Nova Scotia, and the other is hooked with an old material almost lost in the fogs of time, a material recently researched and re-discovered, that can completely change our view of the history of rug hooking in North America.

A Visit to Old Salt, near Chester, Nova Scotia

I arrived at Old Salt on the South Shore of Nova Scotia on Friday, September 3, after driving for 22 hours straight - I beat Hurricane Earl by about two hours. The slide show starts the next morning when the wind was blowing with enough strength to knock my legs out from under me. Eventually, other rug hookers arrived and we spent a week exploring the area. We were beachcombers in Blandford, shoppers in Mahone Bay and Lunenburg, and visitors to the soon-to-be Hooked Rug Museum of North America in Queensland, next to Hubbards.

I saved photos of hooked rugs to be posted in another slide show sometime soon.

Mahjong for Hookers

I am really enjoying playing Mahjong, so I'm planning to use Mahjong artwork in my next rug. On Yahoo Rughookers we are having a hex sign swap. Most of the designs will come from Pennsylvania Dutch barn signs, but I am planning to use a Mahjong symbol. There are three suits in Mahjong, similar to bridge card suits. The suits are called by various names, our group uses Sticks, Cakes and Wans for the suits that look like bamboo, dots, and Chinese written characters. Each suit goes from one to nine. The one cake is my favorite tile. It varies in different sets, but it is always round and geometrical - like the barn signs. I found another similarity, the one stick, which usually looks like a bird resting on a bamboo branch, looks very much like the bird often used in the hex signs - so, I have two choices for Mahjong/hex signs. I just have to decide which version of the mahjong tiles I want to use as my source.

Teaching Rug Hooking

I've finally published my book about teaching rug hooking. I set up a new blog to announce the book and offer a forum for talking about teaching. The new blog address is http://teachingrughooking.blogspot.com

Historic Tour of Howell, MI

Today was exhausting - I went with some friends on a tour of the lofts and vaults and normally inaccessible nooks and crannies in the old buildings in our county seat. We saw some surprising loft apartments, stood in a beneath-the-sidewalk produce storage vault, saw a huge wooden log and wheel pulley that was used to haul pianos up to a third floor where they were repaired, visited a winery where a tunnel,large enough to drive a team of horses under the road had been walled off. We climbed stairs up and down all over town - I haven't climbed so many stairs since I went to Beijing ten years ago. The buildings were built between 1838 and about 1880. Some were brick and stone replacements for early wooden buildings - especially the Presbyterian church - a building large enough to be appropriate in New York City, supported by a congregation of 500. I came home planning to steam my bench rug, but my legs were finished for the day - it took a three hour nap to get me in shape to go to the farm. I may go back soon and take my camera - there were some architectural details that would be nice in rugs someday.

I finished the bench seat insert yesterday, planned to steam it today, but was too busy to get it done. The time I had to work on it was taken up by rioting and rebellious chickens.

My youngest batch of baby chicks is old enough and big enough to join the rest of the flock in the chicken pen, so I decided today was a good day to introduce them to the great outdoors. I carried their bin outside, where they instantly froze in place and became silent as they heard the loud calls and singing of the wild birds. There were two baking cooling racks on top of the bin, serving as a cage top since the chicks are still light weight enough to fly (even without a mama to teach them how). While I was inside, something happened and the cooling racks fell down into the bin and the chicks flew out to become wild birds. Luckily, they didn't fly far - they were all within a few feet of the bin when I went out to check on them. An hour later, I had corralled five of them, but the sixth was really alusive. A little dish of food and another of water might have drawn her out if I hadn't popped out of the house every few minutes to look for her. Another two hours went by, with me on the ground looking under everything to find her, when she finally flew out into the open and I snagged her. The chicken bin had to return inside, just ahead of a thunder storm - maybe these babies will join the big flock tomorrow.

Farm blog comes to Rughooker

My rughooking and farmlife blend so well together, I have trouble keeping them separated for the purpose of having two different blogs. Today, I am posting a copy of yesterday's farm blog here. It's not about hooking, but it's where my mind is when I'm hooking. I'm almost done with a bench insert that I will post soon, maybe tomorrow.
From the Gibbydogblog.blogspot.com :

I've been thinking about the story of "Old Drum" recently. I saw the movie a long time ago and thought I remembered something about a faithful dog - I found the movie and watched it, using an instant download through my Wii from Netflix. The story in the movie reaches its climax with a speech by a famous attorney. Turns out the story is basically true - except the dog that is shot in the movie survives. The reason I've been thinking about the faithfulness of dogs is my dog George's behavior since my mother passed away. George was very close to my mother, and vice versa. My mother saved his life a couple times when she knew he was not well and I hadn't noticed anything was wrong. The first time, I hesitated because I hadn't noticed he was sick, and barely got him to the vet in time. The second time, I loaded him in the car the minute my mother said something was wrong - I think they were able to read each other's minds. Anyway, Ol' George has always spent his sleeping time on the cold wooden floor of the downstairs bathroom or on the cold wooden floor of the kitchen where anyone using the back door had to step over him. Since my mother died, he's been sleeping on the carpeted floor next to her couch. After she turned 95 she spent most of her not-in-bed time resting or sleeping on that couch. That's where George is right now, stretched out on the floor, leaning his back against the couch.

Here is part of the speech, spoken in the real Old Drum trial in the Supreme Court of Missouri. It's the only part of the speech that was saved.


George Graham Vest speaking:

"Gentlemen of the jury, the best friend a man has in this world may turn against him and become his enemy. His son or daughter whom he has reared with loving care may prove ungrateful. Those who are nearest and dearest to us -- those whom we trust with our happiness and good name -- may become traitors in their faith. The money that a man has he may lose. It flies away from him, perhaps when he needs it most. A man's reputation may be sacrificed in a moment of ill-considered action. The people who are prone to fall on their knees to do us honor when success is with us may be the first to throw the stone of malice when failure settles its cloud upon our heads. The one absolute, unselfish friend that man can have in this selfish world -- the one that never proves ungrateful or treacherous -- is his dog.

"Gentlemen of the jury, a man's dog stands by him in prosperity and poverty, in health and sickness. He will sleep on the cold ground, where the wintry winds blow, and the snow drives fiercely, if only he can be near his master's side. He will kiss the hand that has no food to offer; he will lick the wounds and sores that come in encounter with the roughness of the world. He guards the sleep of his pauper master as if he were a prince. When all other friends desert, he remains. When riches take wings and reputation falls to pieces, he is as constant in his love as the sun in its journey through the heavens.

"If fortune drives the master forth an outcast in the world, friendless and homeless, the faithful dog asks no higher privilege than that of accompanying him to guard against danger, to fight against his enemies. And when the last scene of all comes, and death takes the master in its embrace, and his body is laid away in the cold ground, no matter if all other friends pursue their way, there by his graveside will the noble dog be found, his head between his paws, his eyes sad but open in alert watchfulness, faithful and true even to death..."


This is one of those situations where the English language falters. Back when I was in grade school (we didn't ever call it elementary school) I asked a teacher why all of the speeches and poems we studied always said, "he", and I was told that "he" stood for everyone: men, women, and children. Well, I don't think Lawyer Vest meant it that way back in 1880, but I'll accept that the master he in this speech stands for my mother - and the watchful, faithful and true dog is our Ol' George, my mother's dog.

Rugs Labelled and Ready to Go

I went to a quilting group today and sewed labels on the four rugs I've finished since last October. I'm going to take all of them to the SE Michigan Hook-in tomorrow. I guess I'm excited about going tomorrow - I'm all ready today. I steamed the rugs two days ago, ran roller tape over them yesterday to get rid of the dog hair, and labelled them today.

I even designed a new rug to work on at the hook-in. The rug I've been working on is too big to work on with all of those crowded tables. The one I'm going to start will fit on top of a little bench I've had waiting for months. I drew a row of horses out in the pasture - all facing away from the viewer. All well-built Quarter Horses. A row of big rumps. Makes me think of the Republican Senators who voted against the Health Care bill.

Grasshopper Rug Done!

The Grasshopper Rug is finally done, all whipped and ready to steam - after I go over the back and adjust some loops that seem to have been pulled loose while I was carting the rug around to do the whipping.

The whipping is done over two folds of linen, folded upward. I keep thinking I should try Gene Shepherd's whipping technique, but my way goes so much faster - once I whip, I'm done, no sewing to do. The first rug I finished this way has been a dog rug for about two years now, requiring frequent vacuuming, and there's no problem at all with the edge.

Whipping Started

I started whipping my Grasshopper rug tonight. I cut off the extra linen, leaving an inch and a half to fold toward the top of the rug in a double fold, then I whip over that folded linen. I'm using a bulky wool yarn, so I'm whipping with only one strand. Usually I use black yarn, but this time I'm using a kind of fuzzy gray color that matches some of the "antique black" in the border. The whipping goes fairly fast with the bulky yarn, but I stopped after whipping one of the short ends - that took about an hour. Maybe I'll use the same kind of dark gray/antique black for the background on my double-cross rug.

I had a nice drive through some very rural countryside today, as part of a funeral procession (see my http://gibbydogblog.blogspot.com). We drove through country where I used to ride horses and used to travel around with my vet - it hasn't changed much at all in the last forty years. Nice old houses - houses that might be deserted like houses all over Michigan, but they don't look any more deserted than they've always looked. I may go back soon and take some photos for future rug plans. There's an especially nice Queen Anne style house with some unusual gingerbread that I'd like to put into a rug. I saw a nice little herd of Texas long-horn cattle, pretty unusual in Michigan, and heard about one of the calves being stolen and sold to someone right down the road. Long-horn cattle are unique enough around here that the whole community spotted the lost cow right away. Turns out the cattle rustler was the son and grandson of the owners. I guess a black sheep stole the cow.

I'm Back Again

I was just surprised to realize I haven't posted on this blog since last November. It's been a horrible winter for me, but I did get quite a bit of rug hooking done. My mother was bedridden all winter and passed away in February. I was allowed to visit for only two hours a day, when she was usually sleeping, so I set up a hoop that I could attach to her bedside table and carted a big bag of hooking with me each day. The last month or so I was working on Gene Shepherd's Double Cross pattern and my mother told me every day that it was just beautiful. I'm really going to miss that cheering section.

Anyway, I've been hooking that pattern with recycled sports coats for the crosses with a lightly colored mohair sort of background in the step part of the pattern. I like the crosses but dont' like the background colors, so I've put the rug aside while I decide what dark color to use instead. I may use black, although I probably don't have enough black wool, or I might use brown to go with the brown leather loveseat that will be placed next to it. I can't decide, mainly because brown just doesn't seem right.

While I'm debating that color problem, I'll get the whipping done on the Grasshopper rug - I got the edges all trimmed and ready for whipping last night, so I'll get started when I get down to the farm tonight.

Two rugs finished

Last Saturday, I went to a Thrums and Chums meeting - the first one I've been able to attend in about a year. There were more people there than there were the last few times I was able to go, it was a nice group with lots of interesting rugs being hooked. I finished my Grasshopper rug, at least the hooking part. I'm not looking forward to doing the whipping.

To avoid whipping, I pulled out another rug, one that I hooked some time ago, and started hooking the frame - I thought I was all done, then decided tonight to add another row of hooking around the outer edge, it will be done soon. The pattern was given to me by a friend, the Santa and Rudolph from the Kopp book.

I haven't taken any photos yet, will post some when I do.

Sorry, Have Missed Blogging

I'm sorry I haven't been blogging. I've been busy running too and from the hospital and then to and from the nursing home aka "health center" and "rehab facility". Life has been pretty mixed up ever since my mother's fall. She was sent home from the first hospital without any treatment. She got worse while at home for four days, so the visiting nurse talked with the doctor and she was sent to another hospital - the city hospital instead of the small town hospital. Ten days in the second hospital with professionally sad, cocker-spaniel-eyed people suggesting each day my mother might not live through the day, and then another ten days in a rehab facility where she has been up and down, depending on which medication she's being given, and I no longer know one day from the next. Add in the undoing of Daylight Savings Time and I'm really confused. Anyway, I'm not doing dyeing for the duration (I didn't tell in my last report that I turned on the water to rinse my last batch of dyed wool and forgot to turn it off - it ran out of the sink for about an hour - flooded the kitchen, etc), and I've only been hooking a literal ten minutes each day. I missed my hooking time yesterday when I fell asleep eating a late dinner - but then I realized yesterday was Sunday so it was okay to not hook! At this rate, the frame around the outside of my Grasshopper rug is taking longer than the main part of the rug. I thought I'd have this rug done weeks ago.

Red Dye Everywhere

Not any blogger time lately with my mother in the hospital, but now she's in a nursing home and, as of Monday, I am only allowed to be with her for four hours each day. I spent the afternoon at the farm doing a few small chores and chatting with my neighbor who is working on getting my hayfield and pastures ready for haying next year. When I finally came home, I decided to throw some wool in a pot to see if a nice piece of Black Stewart plaid would bleed enough black to make antique black. That's the third or fourth batch of antique black I've made recently, but it seems I need more and more. The Grasshopper rug border requires more and I've changed the background on the silly hooking class mat so it's now antique black. The only problem was, I forgot I put the pot on the stove when I went into the living room to read and fell asleep.

I had added some red and green wool to the black stewart and the pot was pretty full. When it boiled over, the liquid was quite red. The stove was red, floor was red, and the large bath towel that I used to soak it up was red. Now the white enamel pot is quite red.

I added vinegar to the pot, turned the heat waaaay down, and put the pot back on the stove - then I promptly fell asleep again in the living room. I woke up about 2AM and thought I smelled another boiled over pot, but this time I was lucky. Most of the red had been absorbed, so I set the pot in the sink to cool. I guess that's really effortless dyeing.

I was planning to do some natural dyeing today, but got involved in skimming through way too many rug hooking books to find the right recipe. I have some blue-green algae that should make a good color - but I don't remember what color, and I don't remember what I'm supposed to do to draw out the color. I think I'm supposed to soak the algae in ammonia - or something similar.

Right now the algae is soaking in rain water. The rainwater has picked up some color from something, it's a rich brown color - I hope that isn't what the algae will do, there are just too many easier ways to get a nice brown.

Soaking in the rain water seems to have really fed the algae, it popped up and away from the fallen branch its been growing on, and it was easy to pop it off the branch and into a jar.

You can see I'm a little scattered - trying to care for my mother while blogging sometimes makes me as confused as my mother is right now - so, I posted the same photo twice and can't find a way to delete the photo. Can anyone out there tell me how to delete an unwanted photo?

Saved by Rug Hooking

Thank goodness for rug hooking and the Ten Minute Challenge. I've had a few rather stressful days but have been able to chase the stress away by being determined to stick to my ten minute commitment. Hooking for ten minutes always turns into a lot longer and each additional minute is just that much more relaxing.

My mother fell on Saturday and I was afraid she had broken her hip. Seven hours later, the ER doctor finally said she has a minor fracture of her pelvic bone. He admitted her to the hospital and I've been afraid we were about to start another hospital-nursing home routine, but I insisted we didn't need to follow that routine just because Medicare will pay for it, and - shock of all shocks, the discharge social worker actually listened to me. Mother will be coming home tomorrow.

I couldn't take my hooking to the hospital but was going to sit there all day, so I took my sketch book and a couple Martha Stewart magazines, some glue and a pair of scissors. My mother had fun watching me cut and paste, told me I'm a "real artist" after I cut out some cat and kitten pictures. She really loves cats - and here I have a couple dozen of them and can't even bring one into the house for her because of the dogs. There I was, working on my own selfish little project of gathering inspiring pictures that might help me with rug designs, when I suddenly realized that the kittens made my mother smile and feel better than she had since Saturday. For a few minutes, the kittens were great pain killers. My sketch/scrap book did for my mother what my rug hooking has been doing for me - and I'm going to go do some hooking right now.

Dyeing Antique Black Again

The last time I dyed antique black, I really didn't get what I wanted. That batch turned out to be a smoky gray and I've been using it anyway, but, late last night, I decided I just couldn't go on with it. I simmered up another batch of the same tweeds and plaids and this time, added the collar from a black jacket, the black lining from the jacket, and the black lining from a black and white jumper. That batch became very black wool. When I'm cutting the strips, I rarely see any of the original colors peeking through, so I simmered up another batch this morning. I used the same black collar and same black linings as my sources for black dye. This batch is again dark, but it's a little more blue than black. I'll mix the black and blue/black and probably reverse hook all of the smoky gray that I've already hooked.

I guess the dyeing and strip cutting will count as my ten minute hooking. I really haven't hooked at all today and it feels kind of funny. Instead of hooking, I took my new boat out on a lake - but I'm going to write about that on my Gibbydogblog - where I'll tell the story about my little boat becoming a rescue boat.

Thirty-fifth Day on the Grasshopper Rug

The final motif is done. The horse is going up a hill. I didn't change the saddle and rider to western, but I did put the rider in jeans instead of formal breeches like the rider at the other end of the rug.

My mother asked me yesterday what I planned to do with this rug, so for the first time I said that I wanted to put it over the opening between the dining room and the living room (I'm sure there's a name for that kind of architectural feature, but I don't know what it is.) My mother said she thought that was perfect - now I'll have to figure out which way to hang it. I guess there will be time to think about that while I hook the border - and then work once more around with the whipping. I guess I'm not nearly done yet.

Sketching Circles

I started my afternoon with every intention to work on sketching circles. It was one of the afternoons when an aide took the responsibility for my mother, so I packed a bag with a sketch book, pencils, pens, crayons, water colors, and my camera, and headed for the nearest coffee shop where I fully intended to sit and sip coffee and draw circles all afternoon. On the way to the coffee shop, I made a couple stops and took some photos of circles.
These pumpkins and mums are for sale on the lawn part of our nearest strip mall, and would make nice subjects for rugs.

I thought the mums and pumpkins made great circles - and elipses, which I think are just stretched out circles.
These pumpkins were the smallest ones, all piled on some bales of straw. Circles bumping into circles.
These flowers almost make the series of circles that would be warm-up circles once I start drawing.

After the pumpkins, I reached an office that used to house my attorney, but now is a real estate office - and I thought how effective a nice black beauty line around a circular hooked rug would be.
This sign is on the little drive-up bank kiosk - nice way to turn a circle into a globe.

Then a surprising return to my youth - a peace sign on the car parked next to mine when I stopped to check out the consignment shop (where I bought a stone horse - no circles there, and some new hand cream that comes in a circular container .) Does the extra line on the peace sign mean anti-nuclear? seems like I read that somewhere...

Finally got to the coffee shop, which is in a red brick building with some nice extra architectural details, like this elipse. I not only think this circle pattern might be useful someday, but I also really like the bricks. Next time I hook bricks I want to remember to have some black bricks in with the red.
Later in the day, I went to the farm and found a few circles. Those cat eyes are certainly round, as are the cat heads and bodies.
This wheel is from my gold Schwinn bicycle with 3 gears - the first thing I bought with money I earned on my first job while I was in high school. I kept it forever until a man I hired to clean the yard threw it away, but strangely kept the wheels to hang on the side of the barn.

This wheel is from an old farm implement (probably a horse drawn manure spreader) that used to reside in my orchard. There used to be two of them, but someone took a liking to the other one and removed it from my gatepost.

I had great fun collecting circles but never got around to the sketching because I bought a boat. My first warm-up exercise at the cafe was to read a newspaper with my coffee and that's when I saw an ad for a rowboat in the classifieds. The boat I bought earlier in the summer hasn't worked out very well, it's really just too heavy and the motor is too complicated for me to use easily - so, I called the number in the ad, learned the boat is aluminum, and drove right over to see it. It's light weight enough that the ninety year old gentleman who was selling it could lift it by himself - of course, he's in pretty fit shape. If he hadn't told me he'd been married for 61 years, I would have guessed he was about 70. The boat was his wife's and he lost her 16 months ago. They lived all those years on a summer camp for poor city children. The camp sits on the edge of a good fishing lake, and I now have permission to take the boat back over there and fish in that lake. The camp, his home, is on a dirt road that brings back wonderful memories for me. Many years ago, I used to ride horses on that road. It was just a sandy track back then with hardly any traffic and we used to gallop up and down like it was a race track. That's where I rode my favorite horse, my Morgan stallion Tara. This new boat will be easy to handle, easy to transport in the back of my truck, so I can take it to any nearby lake, but I think I'll try out Mr. Witte's fishing lake first. So, anyway, I never did get to my sketching assignment, from Heidi Wulfraat's Sketching rug camp, I went to a boat camp instead.

End of September Report

September is finished, but my rug isn't. I really thought it would be done by the end of the month, and it is close I guess it's the border that slowed down the progress. The border on the top now reaches the last motif, so I started the last horse hooking. I putzed around and fussed around and found wool in my barn studio, went to my old studio for more, and even acquired wool from the Salvation Army, all looking for a good, rich brown for the horse. I found the perfect brown in my sale wool at the old studio, put it in the washing machine, and then started hooking with the same heathery tweed I used for the trunk of one of the trees. I guess I just couldn't wait any longer. It's too bad dimensional hooking doesn't show up well in photos - this horse looks pretty blah in a flat photo, but I do like him when I can see his curves. I still haven't turned the rider into a cowboy, I still might make that change but probably won't since the horse's head is up too high for a western pleasure horse - he looks more like a European warmblood, which is completely inappropriate for the Grasshoppers since warmbloods hadn't even come to this country yet back when we were riding together.

Grasshopper Rug, Day 29

I think this is day 29 and I'm still hooking border. I'm really surprised how long the border is taking, I'm going to have to come up with a faster way to get it done. I like the border better from a distance than from close-up. The edge of the main part has a rough-torn look that I like. I'll avoid doing some of the border tonight - after my mother goes to bed - by hooking some of the grass around the tennis court.

Slow Border Progress

I've been getting in a lot more than the required ten minutes for the Ten Minute Challenge during the past few days, but I'm still not making very much progress on the antique black border. I found I needed to fill in a lot more grass under the horse, so I planted a few little wildflowers, too. That's one thing that's nice about working on my own pattern, I can change anything anytime without any qualms - but, at the same time, that need for change is a bad thing about working on my own pattern and finding I haven't planned very well - but, the truth is, I like hooking grass and flowers a lot more than I like hooking border.

I wanted to cut down on the amount of border at the far end, where I'm still holding off on hooking the final motif, so I hooked in some trees. I suppose I'm thinking about the apple orchard next to my outdoor riding arena because we didn't ride near an orchard when I rode with the Grasshoppers. I think I'll change the horse and rider to western. We used to ride English, hunt seat that is, for our weekly lessons, but whenever we could, we rode again on the weekend at a western stable. There was one stable in particular that we rented from for years, even though they moved almost annually to new run-down farms on the outskirts of the city. They ended up at a farm not too far from where I live now and I went there to buy my first horse - and ended up with two horses. The cowboy who owned the stable was quite a horsetrader. I picked out a small bay horse and the cowboy insisted he couldn't be separated from his "brother", a medium size gray. When I went back a week later to pay for the horses, the gray brother had disappeared and now the bay had a big palomino brother and they couldn't be separated. The palomino proved the truth of that lie by jumping over the hitching rail he was tied to when I tried to ride the bay out of the stable yard. He was caught halfway over the rail, teetering back and forth wildly. The rail had to be sawed apart to get him down. So, I took those two horses home. Named them Millard and Thunder. Anyway, I think I'll make the horse bay and put western tack on him.