June Finishes

The good thing about sitting home all weekend with a sore jaw is in between naps, I got a lot of binding done. At retreat, I started two brick quilts for my nephews. My mom has a room set up for them and no quilts on the twin beds. Well, we can have that, can we?





Then, I got the binding on this Yellow Brick Road quilt made from fabrics I got at Plain & Simple a hundred years ago. There's Shelby getting ready to test out my work.



Then, when I felt I could operate machinery again (vicodin doesn't knock me out but it does make me a bit loopy), I quilted and bound a preemie quilt.


Last week, Laura and I took Gina's Gum Drop Pillow class at Karen Gray Designs. It was great fun and a lot easier than I thought. I'm giving Gina all the credit for that. We got our pillows together in class and I got mine stuffed that night and promptly put my feet up.


I like it so much, I made another one tonight. I like it even better.


Finally, I got my donkey framed so it's finally finished. I splurged on museum glass because this will be my one and only pictorial rug. If teacher Karen hadn't been there to hold my hand, this would have been one funny looking donkey.

Donkey People

Work has been a bit wild for the past couple of weeks plus I have had something to do almost every evening after work. If I do get to go home, I seem to get nothing done. I'm pooped!

I did manage to get my donkey finished this weekend though...for which I am thankful. This was designed and taught by Karen Poetzinger, an incredible rug hooker. It was fun and I'm glad I did it but I'm more a primitive rug hooker. Those little bitty wool strips drive me nuts!

We, the Donkey People

This past Saturday, HB and I went to a special rug hooking guild meeting. It started early and ended late so we could have a workshop. One of the guild members is also our teacher and she graciously held an animal workshop for us all. Karen's work is unbelievable. Check it out. So, we got to choose between a goose and a donkey. HB and I both chose the donkey. It was a lot of fun but I don't see me doing pictorial rugs on my own. I would have never figured out the colors or the shading.

All day long, Karen had to address us as Goose people or Donkey people. We got a little punchy by the end of the day but still managed to get our donkeys done. Now we only have to do the background. I think I can manage it. We'll see.

The Great Rug Fest Roadtrip

Finally, I remembered to bring my camera in from the car! It's been one of those weeks where I have something going on every evening after work and work is wild all on its own. But here I am finally having a moment to tell you about the weekend and the trip to the Virginia Rugfest.

First, when I said hilarity would ensue... I had no idea how bad it would be. We laughed so much, my sides are STILL sore. It was constant and just way more fun that should be allowed. We followed my little GPS unit all the way to Richmond and made one wrong turn because we were talking too much. Once we got back to the correct exit, we followed the GPS to the hotel. It said to turn left on Sandy Drive. I turned left. It said to turn right on Bell Creek. I turned right. It said "you have arrived". Well, we had arrived to the Walmart parking lot. HB is in the backseat saying "hey, are we going to Holiday Inn? It's behind us." We were too busy laughing while we toured the Walmart parking lot to care. Moral of the story...a personal GPS unit is only so accurate. If you want true accuracy, say...5/100th of a foot (which is the accuracy of my husband's GPS he uses as a surveyor), you'll have to shell out $40,000. I'll stick with my slightly off GPS and just keep my eyes open.

We settled in and even ordered Chinese food to be delivered to our room (which was yummy). It was nasty rainy outside so we weren't all that interested in venturing out again. After an evening of rug hooking and laughing at each other some more, we all turned in for the night. The next morning we set off for the Virginia Rugfest. Thank goodness for the little GPS because this place was out there. We thought the entry fee was a bit pricey ($12) especially since we weren't staying to rug hook (it was a "hook-in" where everyone brought something to work on and sat in a big room and hooked). Other than a high price tag on entry, the show was very nice. I managed to purchase a nice variety of wool for my next big project and SS bought a little kit and a pattern. (Yes... HB and I have sent her over the edge.) In the main lobby they had a small rug show. People just brought finished rugs to display so they had no idea how many or what they would be displaying. Here are some of my favorites...

These first two are by a featured rug hooker. They were incredible.

The rest are rugs brought in by the ladies spending the day at the hook-in. I especially love the primitive rugs.

Finally, this is what I was working on while we were on our road trip. It was a kit I bought at the NQA show last June. It's made of wool yard and is punched like needlepunching...just bigger. I finished it in less than a day. I think I'm going to turn it into a stool top.

Yay! It's done! (sort of)

I finished my rug about midnight last night just as the last chapter of Harry Potter & the Deathly Hollows closed on my CD player. How perfect is that?! Why sort of finished? Well, the next step is to bind the rug and where I find binding a quilt relaxing and therapeutic, binding a rug has not proven to be so serene. It has to be done though so maybe I'll prep it before we take off on our adventure.

What adventure, you ask? Well, as if HB and I didn't have enough fun last weekend, we are headed to Mechanicsville, Virginia (Richmond area) for the Virginia Rugfest. (wooo hooo). My SS (Soul Sister) is going too. The three of us together...watch out...hilarity will ensue. SS has been known to make me spit coffee all over my steering wheel and snort out loud in the silence of my office...much to the delight of the guys next door.

HB and I are trying to recruit our quilting friends to the dark side (rug hooking) but so far everyone is holding fast to their quilting stash. I believe SS is dangerously close to the edge of the cliff. I'm hoping the woolen goodies at Rugfest will send her over the edge this weekend so she can join our little rug coven.

Rug Hooking at the Beach

Well...I guess we were at the beach...we never saw the ocean except from afar. It was TOO COLD! This weekend my hookin' buddy (HB) and I stayed with her mom in in a little town on the Crystal Coast so we could spend Saturday with the Piedmont Rug Hooking Guild at their retreat at Trinity Center. We had a blast. We arrived Friday evening in time to go with Mom and Aunt Sarah to the Bogue House for the best fried trout, collard greens and fried okra you can ever imagine. Mom and Aunt Sarah are too much fun to be around. We went back to the house and had a little show and tell. I think they liked our rugs but planned on sticking to quilting.

Saturday morning Mom fixed us breakfast and sent us on our way to the rug hooker's retreat. The Trinity Center is on the barrier island and sits back in the woods a bit, backing up on the sound. It is a beautiful place and very relaxing. Our fellow rug hookers were already hard at work.

One difference between a rug hooking retreat and a quilting retreat is you don't have as much junk to tote for rug hooking. A frame bag and a wool basket and you're done. It wakes several trips to the car to unload for a quilting retreat.

Here are a few of the rugs. This first on will have quilt blocks hooked in the borders.

The sun rays on this rooster are from one piece of wool that was dip dyed. I'm trying real hard not to get sucked into dying my own wool. It's hard to resist.

I thought this was incredible. It looks like the real painting, doesn't it?

This woman is reproducing an antique rug she saw.

This is a huge rug the lady sitting across from be was working on. If she wasn't such a sweet lady, I would have been very intimidated.

This is the woman that taught me and HB (and many of the other women in the group) how to rug hook. That's her little scrap rug on the floor. She dyes all her own wool and all her rugs are her original designs. Yep, she scares us.

Here is my favorite rug of the weekend.

Here's HB working on Good Dog. We joke that we get so zoned out when rug hooking that we're at risk of drooling. She's not, I assure you. I'd punch her if I caught her drooling in public. She'd do the same for me. That's what friends are for, right?

Here's the whole group at the end of the day. They had already cracked open the wine and cheese and we were about to go back to Mom's house.

Mom had homemade fried chicken and potato salad waiting on us when we got there. It was goooooood. We were spoiled rotten. It was difficult to leave this morning after being taken care of all weekend...but it had to be done. It was a nasty, cold, rainy drive home but with a stop for coffee in Beulaville (really) and lunch at the State Farmer's Market, we made it home in no time. I'm sure HB was settled in for a nap before I got back on the highway. I'm heading for my nap now. Shelby's waiting on me.

Making Progress...

Here's my rug after working on it all this weekend. It is slow going but at least I am making progress. For all the non-rug hookers, this can become very addictive and it's pretty expensive. The wool...well...it's a lot more expensive than quilting fabric. Every now and then you find a deal though. The black I'm using for the background used to be a jacket. I bought it at the rug hooking guild's yard sale for $3. I don't even want to think about how much the rest of the wool in this rug cost.

Plans for the Weekend

Today was my day off and I've promised myself I will get one thing done to this house every time I am home on my day off. Today I tackled the book shelf in the living room. I got all my photo albums out, went through all the pictures and put them in photo boxes. The albums that were falling apart I threw away. The rest went to the yard sale corner. I filled up a box of full of books and nic naks for the yard sale too. So the organization melee that went on in my quilting room is slowly progressing to the rest of the house. I got my one thing done so now I am free to roam the weekend.



This is another one of those wonderful weekends at home. I do not have to leave the house if I don't want to...but I will probably go to the grocery store so we don't have to eat cereal all weekend. My plan is to see how much of my rug I can get done. It has been very slow going because I only work on it every other week or so but now I want to get it done so I can do something else. (I promised myself I would do one rug at a time, which is opposite of how I quilt. I cannot tell you how many quilts I have actually in progress.) So... here's where I am tonight on my rug. I'll post again Sunday night to show how much I actually was able to get done. Wish me luck!

It's Beginning to Feel A Lot Like Christmas...

The past couple of weeks have been very hectic at work. It's the end of the year so we're trying to work out our strategy for next year, plan and execute our Christmas party and a week later the open house for our new office, plus lots of proposals to get out the door. On top of all that, we had grant applications due yesterday...which meant they had to be done Friday. I have to ask...what kind of Grinch makes grant applications due a week before Christmas? All of last week, the Grinch song was running through my head. (you're a mean one, Mr. Grinch...)

With all the stress of work and overwhelming schedules, November was a blur and December non-existent for me. But finally, the rush is over, for now anyway. I was able to kick back and enjoy a wonderful weekend full of holiday festivities. First, one of my best buddies and I drove to Durham to attend the Piedmont Rug Hookers guild meeting. It was, of course, the annual Christmas party, held at the lovely home of an even lovelier lady. Just before lunch, she brought out the egg nog. She announced that the big bowl had booze and the little bowl was boozeless. Well, we're not going to miss out on anything so we went for the big bowl. After the first sip, we looked at each other in amazement. Found the rum...where's the nog? One cup was enough. I would eventually have to drive after all.

After we left the rug hookers, we swung by our favorite quilt shop and headed home. Throughout the afternoon, we speculated as to how the rug hookers party was progressing and wishing we could have stayed longer.

Sunday found me at another wonderful gathering. One of our bee members has a cookies and glogg party every year. Last year I missed it; this year I was going if I had to walk there. Her house and gardens are beautiful to see. She had made 60 different types of cookies which were placed all through the house. The glogg, a warm spiced (and spiked) concoction made the egg nog taste like plain ol' milk. It was yummy! We mingled and wandered through the house sampling cookies. I didn't get one of each but I had more than enough. I went home and took a nap.

All in all, a wonderful weekend...but the best was yet to come.

Last night our bee got together for our annual Christmas dinner. We met at one of the new restaurants in town and the food was wonderful. We played "Dirty Santa" where everyone brings a gift, we draw numbers and either select a gift from the pile or steal one that's already been opened. Everyone was way too nice and didn't steal from each other...well, except for one, but who could blame her? I did bring some nice fabrics back from Plain and Simple after all.

It was a wonderful evening. Great friends, great food, great gifts. As my best friend and I were driving home, I felt completely content. For me, it finally felt like Christmas.