On Vacation

Heading to Alaska for a few days vacation. The cool temps will be wonderful after the near 100s we've been having here in Utah lately.

Baby Love

DD#2 is expecting her first baby in September, and hubby & I are finally going to be grandparents! YAY! Her and I have been getting things ready for the baby and it's been a lot of fun for me - I was tickled that she asked me to help. I just pulled this little quilt out of the dryer and snapped a couple pictures of it to share with you - I love that it's so soft now - and the raw edges of the appliqued circles are fuzzy. I can just see our new baby boy all wrapped up in it and sleeping peacefully.

I love the colors that she chose - definitely not my normal palette, that's for sure!

                   

You can see the rest of the baby's nursery here:

And you can see pictures from the recent baby shower that DD#1 produced here:

Families are what it's all about - don't you agree?  (BTW - his name is Tyce)

New Dye Book

My friend Angela is such a talented rug hooker. She usually hooks her own designs and her color sense and technique are supberb! Every loop she pulls is exactly the same height, and I really don't think she needs to steam a rug after it's finished because it never curls on her - oh how I wish that was the case with my hooking! Anyway, last week she released a new self-published dye book that looks like it will be a great addition to anyone's library. If you'd like to check it out, you can find it on her website Pioneer Primitives and order it from there. Tell her I sent you!

I added a couple new sheep to my collection a couple days ago. Found these at the Home Goods store and I paid $2.99 for the set! Cute, huh?

A New Project

Well, it's sorta new! I've been working on it for a couple months now and I realized I hadn't shared a picture of this rug yet. This is actually an applique quilt pattern that I found for free on the internet, but I decided it would make a great rug instead - quilting and rug hooking are SO compatible!  I'd love to share the link with you but I can't seem to find it again! Grrr..... I'm using my favorite background on this piece - I pulled out a bunch of ugly bright plaids from my stash and overdyed them an antique black. There's lots of interest and movement that way.

And, on another note, have you tried the new Pretzel M&Ms yet? Mmmmmmm. The perfect combination of salty and sweet. I'm lovin' 'em!

New York

Hubby & I recently spent a week or so in New York visiting my brother-in-law. We did all the typical tourist things, but I wasn't able to do much shopping - besides - there isn't much in the way of primitive to be found in the Big Apple. We spent several hours in the Metropolitin Museum of Art and my favorite scene was this one that depicted a Shaker room. Whodathunk that there would be such a thing in that museum?

One day we drove out to the east end of Long Island and did a bit of exploring through the Hamptons. We stopped at a park to eat our picnic lunch and I noticed that there was a thrift store right adjacent to it. Of course I had to check it out! Didn't find much that really interested me, but I got pretty excited when I saw this piece of wool yardage. There are quite a few moth holes in it, but that doesn't bother me and won't be a problem once I run it through the wash. This is a huge piece of fabric. It measures 72" wide and is 5 yards long. Once I pointed out the moth holes, the clerk sold it to me for $4.00. WooHoo! There is a really old and tattered label on it that's hard to read. I think it says it's a blanket, even though the edges aren't finished. Anyway, I look forward to using it in a future rug. I'll use some as-is, and then throw some of it into the dye pot to see what I come up with. Any suggestions?

Meeting At My House

I got home from vacation late Monday night, and first thing Tuesday morning all my rug hooking buddies showed up at my house for our monthly meeting. What a way to get back to my normal routine - it was great! Here's a picture of the group all busy working on their own projects.

Marliss is nearly finished hooking the background on her circle rug, and is trying to decide what to do with the border. She teaches piano lessons and plans to attach this rug to the piano bench to give her students a little soft padding.

Tonia is working on a great rug of the Angel Moroni that I really like. The wools and colors she used on this are just perfect.

Sandy is doing a fun little rug - each square has a different motif in it so it's always interesting for her to work on. After she got home from our meeting she was able to make a much anticipated trip to Jackson Hole, WY where she hit the wooly jackpot at the local thrift store. Yay for Sandy!

Tonia shared this piece of wool that she bought. It was a very simple skirt, but very unusual because the floral design was printed on the surface of the fabric instead of woven in. We were tickled for her because the original price tag of $400+ was still attached to the skirt. It had been marked down to the clearance price of $200+, and she found it priced for $4.00 at the thrift store. It's a little too heavy to use for hooking so she'll probably make a nice purse or tote bag out of it.

It's so nice to be home (for awhile).