Are You Sitting Down Saundra???

I do so certainly hope so for this is not only a post about hooking, but it's also a post about my hooking and a hooking finish at that.

It only took me 15+ (?) years to get here.

I've posted about this rug several times already (Just use the index on the sidebar and look up "Welcome Cats" and you will find the posts about it...at least the posts from after the time I started using the label feature.)

It became a true bane...and pain.

It started when I saw this photo of an antique rug in a book.

It was love at first sight.

The muted/faded colors...the watercolor(ish) effect of the background...and

I mean, seriously, those wonderful, wonky, cats!!!

I searched for a long time before finding a pattern online. (This was long before my days of knowing Saundra of Woodland Junction and her gift for reproducing antique reproduction patterns.)

It was well before WWR ("When We Remodeled") that I finally located and purchased a pattern, chose the wools, and started it.

I am, by nature, a slow hooker slow at everything and, at the time, I was still working so progress was snail-like.

This is a photo of the original antique rug taken from a book:

Then WWR hit.

The rug pattern and wools were hastily shoved in "some box somewhere" (there was a lot of that during WWR) and forgotten.

When the dust of WWR (somewhat) settled, I eventually pulled it out again...only to realize I was at a complete loss as to what wool I had intended for where since I had not marked or noted or organized anything. (In fact, I wasn't completely convinced it was even the correct wool for this project that I had shoved in the box.)

I picked things back up, however, in earnest in 2021(ish??)...

only to realize three significant things:

1) The pattern I purchased was far from true to the original and, while not an antique reproduction purist like Saundra, I really had wanted it to be a somewhat faithful reproduction of the original rug. (One would think I would have noticed the discrepancies before I was halfway through...but....).

2) My style of hooking had changed over the years (not necessarily for the better), so it looked like two different people had hooked it; and

3) I somewhat regretted using the cool color palette of the antique and wished I had instead used the warm colors (and more simplified background) that others who hooked it had used.

It was even more slow-going from then on out, but I did, finally, finish the hooking in the latter part of 2022.

The cats' snaggletooth grins are one of my favorite things:

Another is the "ghost" ball between the two cats. The ball is barely noticeable in the original and I missed it initially. It was not included in the pattern I purchased and only discovered it when bemoaning the discrepancies between my pattern and the original.

While I generally enjoy binding my rugs, I felt this one was doomed to reside forever and always on The Isle of the Unfinished.  But then, in March of last year, Saundra and I decided to join each other in long-distance, virtual, binding "dates" for an hour each day.

Of course, Saundra finished binding her rug in no time flat.

I, on the other hand, did not.

Yes, I had handicaps Saundra did not:

 

My efforts were, nonetheless, quite pathetic.

But here is where the drumroll begins...and Saundra needs to sit down.

It is finally bound and fully finished (well, except for the labeling which will never happen...and the hanging on the wall which probably will never happen.)

Ta da!!!

{The colors in the above photo aren't quite true...but you get the idea.}

I used a subtle plaid wool for the binding:

It's officially in the books as the rug that went on forever.

😅