Pieces of January...

 

Yes, I know it's February...but I'm still picking up pieces of January (and, actually, several other months if truth be told.)

This winter - this year so far - has been bumpy. Extreme cold, frozen plans...and pieces that just fell apart. Most days, "Plan A" never stood a chance, so I moved on to Plan B, and, right about now, I think I'm pretty firmly entrenched in Plan D.

I'm far too far behind to make a pretense of catching up, so I'm just jumping in here and sharing some of my "puzzle pieces" from the past month and hoping things start to fit together at some point.

I am not entirely certain what happened the first few weeks of the month. I know what didn't happen (like getting Christmas put away...Lauren, I'm sure, is loath to have a twin like me) so we're going to skip that part, k?

But mid-month I remember both what I did and did not do, so we'll start with that.

The past several years I've spent mid-January at Cathy Stephan's (Red Barn Rugs') rug hooking workshop. For various reasons, this year's January workshop was cancelled. Instead, Cathy and a couple other hooky friends from the January group joined me at the lake for a few days of hooking.

Our friend, Marilyn Becker, who passed away the end of October, had been part of our January workshop group so we decided it would be a fitting opportunity to celebrate her, her friendship, and her amazing hooking artistry.

It was snowy and cold, but we enjoyed the few days we had together.

We took turns making meals, some hooked more than others (ahem!), we watched a few movies and, one day, we ventured out to do a bit of antiquing/junking.

A few of the things that caught my eye:

{Only one of the above items followed me home....}

And what about the hooking projects?

Well, yeah, I was a bit preoccupied with trying to remember how to be a hostess so failed quite miserably not only in that department but also in getting photos of the projects being worked on by the others. 

Here are the few I managed to get:

Marilyn ("Bad" Marilyn...not "Good" Marilyn who we were celebrating) was working

on a piece based on a photo she had taken of a Guatemalan woman and her child. She has already redone the woman's skirt at least twice and plans on redoing it again with totally different wool. She is also going to re-do her face. (Like Good Marilyn, Bad Marilyn is a fine-cut hooker, meaning she hooks with wool strips the width of dental floss.)

Below is the actual photo from which she is working:

Cathy, ever the over-achiever, was working on several things at once. This is the only one I got a photo of:

This rug is HUGE. It is shown below with my 20-lb cat for size reference.

(I believe she said the rug's name is "Hazel" and measures 48" x 60"??)

I tried to convince her to leave the rug for Rajah and me, but she declined.

Unfortunately, I did not get any photos of our friend, Kim's, rug. :-(

I'd like to leave the following part out, but I know there is at least one person out there who would be asking what I worked on.

It's little, it's pathetic...and I got pathetically little accomplished on it, but here ya go MD:

Each of us were also gifted a rug/mat that had been hooked by Good Marilyn.

This is the one I received:

I stayed on a day and a half after everyone left to clean things up, pack things up, etc. (i.e., to catch up on sleep??)

The end of the month? Well, I remember most of that as well - the good, the bad and the ugly.

First the good:  The night after I got home from the lake, I was drawn outside by a lightening of the sky.  Some of the strangest Northern Lights I've witnessed - not so much colorful as BRIGHT - especially against the white of the snow.

There are no streetlights (or any kind of lights) out where I am and I had no porch or yard lights on, yet it was so clear it seemed like early evening. The photo info is shown below. It was 9:59 p.m.

Then there was the bad:

I know many of you were inundated with snow and we, thankfully, escaped that...but we were plunged into bitter, bitter, cold. -30° actual temps with -50° windchills...and guess who came home to heating issues, AGAIN???!

Thankfully, it was in the shop, not the house but, in many ways, it was just as bad since the shop has an in-floor heating system and if it stops working, the entire system and floor can be ruined if it gets cold enough...and it certainly was cold "enough."

On top of that good news, I was unable to even get into the shop because the door had frozen shut.

I finally managed to break in after 2 days so I could get the heating company out in...only to be told that the company that manufactured the heating system had gone out of business, so replacement parts were no longer available.

Seriously??!! If you recall, I just replaced that entire system shortly after my husband passed away so, less than two years ago.

GAH!

They did manage to get it working again, but they had to bypass the auto-shut off function so should it stop working again and drop below freezing, it's done and gone.

Did I say "GAH!"?

And then the ugly:

I came down with a bad case of the flu.

Let's just leave it at that.

I'm on the mend but certainly haven't kicked it completely.

And there you have it...my January in bits and pieces. There's more, actually, but this is more than enough for now, I think.

*****

Oh...and one last thing for the person who asked....

{pssst....and soon there will be two....💗}

Paper Play

Are there other things I should be doing?

As Mia would say, "Oh yeeesss...."

But....

It's Halloween Week!!!!!!!!

Every now and again I put my needle and thread down (yes, and my hook...except I think I put that down months and months ago and can't remember where 😉) and play at another craft.

Sometimes it's spun cotton, sometimes punching...and, often times, just playing with paper.

There is something very satisfying about making something just out of a simple piece of paper.

 One of my greatest loves is vintage Halloween but anything remotely vintage Halloween comes at a very dear price these days.

And, although I generally don't like "fakes," I couldn't resist making a few of these little treat boxes.

These are made out of heavy cardstock that I aged/distressed to look authentically old. (Both the tops and the bottoms of the boxes are aged.)

This one I made with a cellophaned opening...haven't figured out what I will put in it yet though.

And, when I tired of the boxes, I made this scarecrow pick:

He's on a nice long dowel but I just tucked him in with my vintage hand brooms.

{Scarecrow pick pattern is by Walnut Ridge Primitives}

********

On an unrelated and sad note, I wanted to mention that the hooking community lost an incredible artist the day before yesterday.

Marilyn (a/k/a "Good") Becker passed away.

Marilyn was not only a near and most dear neighbor, but an amazing fine-cut hooker and has had several rugs in Rug Hooking Celebration magazine.  She mastered the technique of mimicking a photograph in wool.

I've shared a few of her pieces over the years. You may remember her "Marry Me Mary" rug which was based on a photograph and memorialized her father's proposal of marriage to her mother.

Look closely and you can see the fur that Marilyn incorporated in her mother's coat.

Marilyn read my blog and whenever we were together would mention it and, if others were present, would tell them about it.

She was a dear soul, and I hope she is reading this on the other side.

 

 

Hooking on the Lane

 

Yes, I'm here...whether I want to be or not.

Truth be told, most days I don't want to be.

That aside, and in an effort to distract myself from the endless picking up of pieces, a few weeks ago I imposed upon the resident hooker down the lane and attended one of the popular Red Barn Rugs workshops.

Unfortunately, I was neglectful in taking photos of the rugs most of the attendees were working on. In fact, I managed only to take photos of my table neighbor, Marilyn (a/k/a "Bad" Marilyn) Denning,'s rug:

While I didn't get a photo of what the other Marilyn (a/k/a "Good Marilyn") (Becker) was working on, I did get this photo of the masterpiece she recently completed of her great granddaughter:

So, the rest of the following photos are just random photos around Cathy's house and studio of a fraction of her rugs:

{This is one of Cathy's very newest designs called "Amelia."}

{I know I've shown "Ol' Jack" before, but since he was peeking through the doorway in the last photo, he deserves to be shown again...}

{Sorry for the blur!}

And my favorite:

Lastly, and only because I know Saundra (of Woodland Junction) would bug me if I didn't, here is the stag rug I was half-heartedly working on.  It is a design by Homespun Prims by Lori.

Yes, it is the same rug I started almost exactly a year ago in the last workshop I went to.  However, I decided I did not like the wool I chose for the stag and ripped it out and started over....only to rip that out and go back to the original wool...which I am still not sure I am happy with.

Such is my life these days.

Maybe I should stick with stitching.

Oh, The Things That Can Be Hooked!

 Oh, the things that can be hooked...by 3 Marilyn's, 2 Mary's, a Kim, a Pat, a Cat and a Crow....

Well, by the Crow, not so much.

I was there for the food and entertainment.

Where's "there?"

"There" is "the farm"...

a/k/a "Red Barn Rugs"...

...You know, that place just down the lane here in Nod.

More specifically, a three-day hooking workshop hosted (hostessed?) by

Cathy (proprietress and mistress of the red barn at the farm) and

attended by some very talented hookers.

I have no clue how I ended up in this group.

Talk about over-achievers.

Yikes.

Let's start with the three Marilyns...

{A hooked rendition by ("Good"*) Marilyn of her grandson, Meisha.  Hooked in threads.  Ok, not really...but a 3-cut is pretty much the same IMO.}

{("Good") Marilyn's reindeer}

{("Bad"*) Marilyn's contemporary abstract...also hooked in threads.}

{("Bad") Marilyn's punch needle and hooked combination.}

{("Other"*) Marilyn's turkeys...her original design, of course.}

{Black Squirrels...another of "Other" Marilyn's originals.}

And moving on to the Mary's (ok...a Mary and a Mary Jo...but still.)

{Mary's "Pumpkin Runner" (with (awesome) creative liberties taken).}

{Mary Jo's "Turkey Tyme" (a Red Barn Rugs pattern).}

"The Kim:"

{Kim's "The Gleaners"...another Red Barn Rugs pattern.}

And "The Pat:"

{Pat's "Flower Power" red truck.}

And the Cat and the Crow?

Well, that amazing "Barn Owl" in the first photo is Cat's and her original Red Barn Rug design.

The Crow?

The Crow got nothing accomplished.

Like I said, I was there for the food and the entertainment....

Whether to partake of the entertainment or provide it is something I am still trying to figure out.  🤔

(*The "good," "bad," and "other" descriptors for the 3 Marilyn's was NOT my doing...they were designated as such long before I came into their lair.  But, they fit...oh, they fit.)

From a 2 to a 10 (and Everything In Between)

 ...and I'm not talking about my dress size.

🙈

In a (somewhat) un-ending (well??) quest to locate my elusive hooking mojo, I once again wandered down the lane to Red Barn Rugs.

I didn't find it (the mojo, I mean...I found the Red Barn of course). But I did find myself in the company of some incredibly talented hookers.

Since I didn't accomplish any hooking and was not successful in finding that mojo, ya think I would have managed to at least take some more (and better) photos; but it seems when one thing goes missing, others do as well.

Be it as it may, I did come away with a few snippets from the day.

Miss Marilyn (a/k/a "Good Marilyn") was working on her own design of which I did not get a photograph.  I was too amazed at the bag of so-called "worms" she was working from.  I call them dental floss.  YIKES!  I do believe they were 2 and 3 cuts.

Seriously?? Who does that??!

(For you non-hookers who are still with me, the smaller the number of the cut, the thinner the strip of wool is that one pulls through the foundation...so 2's and 3's, like in dresses, are wee thin.)

Anyway, I did manage to get a photo of her precious Charlie rug.

Yeah...it was done in dental floss too.  But as precious as her real Charlie.

Some of you may remember Marilyn's tribute to her grandparents' engagement ("Marry Me Mary") that she hooked several years ago and I had on my blog...also years ago. 

Yeah, THAT Marilyn.

This rug still stuns me.

Rumor has it that Marilyn will be having another rug featured in Rug Hooking's Celebration.

Good Marilyn was scheduled for surgery the following day.... If you're out there reading this Marilyn, I hope you're recovering well. (And thank you for your so very kind words.)

Pat was putting the finishing touches on "Southwest Geometric," by Cathy (Red Barn Rugs*).  This is one big rug...and, yup, done in pretty small cuts, although no 2's or 3's.

And then there was Bad Marilyn. 

(She is one BAD Marilyn, let me tell you.)

Again, I did not get a photo of her current project (DUH!!), but I did get a photo of her David Galchutt "Witch."  

Who needs a fancy title with all THIS??!

Try as I might, I just couldn't capture the color or the details...so many details! 

So many varied textiles (I particularly fell in love with the black chenille), so many embellishments... It was one of those pieces you could look at a dozen times and always find something new to squeal about.

And, yeah...those teeny, tiny, cuts.

Cathy* had finished hooking her new "Colonial Eagle" pattern...she just needed to finish the binding.  I could drown myself in this background...it's that good.

And, yeah...Cathy hooks with 10 cuts.  (Actually, I think this one was done in 9.5?? but who's counting??) 

As for the "in between," that would be me...if I ever got any actual hooking done.  My "sweet spot" is an 8 or an 8.5.

I have no updates on "Welcome Cats" (or any other of my started-but-finished projects).  So you are probably wondering what it is I did do if I neither hooked nor took decent photos.  Well, about all I did was work a little on binding my "13 Stars" mat.  Very little...but I did finally finish it up a few days later.

{Design by The Old Tattered Flat}

It's not perfect, but it's done...and, in my world, done is good these days.

*******

I've fallen a bit behind on the "current reads" since I haven't posted much (but I continue to read).  This is the book I finished up last week (I think??):

Kristin Hannah is the author of one of my very favorite books The Nightingale, and I have read many (most?) of her books.  I have enjoyed them all, but none as much as The Nightingale.  This one is one of her older books and I am not certain why I hadn't read it before...probably because it was described as a "love story."  (Yeah...just not in the mood for those lately.)

But Cathy and I swap books and she had this one so I read it.

It is, indeed, a love story...of sorts...but also much more.  It is actually a story within a story set both in modern (well, early 2000's) time and in war-era Lenigrad.  Would I recommend it? Yes...It was not as good as The Nightingale, but it was a refreshing change from some of the "darker" things in which I tend to get mired.

******

*For the hookers:  I believe I may have confused some readers in my last post and perhaps in this one as well.  Let me clarify:  "Red Barn Rugs" is Catherine (a/k/a Cathy) Stephan's business.  And to answer several questions from my last post, no, she does not have a website.  She, does, however, have a Facebook page (search under her name, Catherine Stephan, and when you find the red barn, you've found the right one).  Many of her designs are listed in albums under the "photos" tab on her page...but she has so many more.  You can keep up with her newest designs by following her Facebook posts. 

******

That's it for now.... 

Beware the Ides of March.