Another Journal on Off the Wall Friday

 

 Is anybody out there just a glutton for cool stationary supplies?  Maybe it's because it's back to school time and the shelves are full of the coolest ones.  Or maybe it's because Cindi Gay has a whole series of lessons about journaling, but it got me in the mood to give journaling another try. 

 I have had several failed attempts.  Once I set one up for quilting.  Barely used it. I mean really, blogging about my quilting journey was plenty,   I did have pretty good success with the The Happy Planner series, mostly because it was a planner and not a journal.  Plus, they have a whole lot of stickers that you can buy with it.  (Does it say something about me that I still love stickers at 60?) But now with my phone on me all days, the calendar on it keeps me straight so that fell by the wayside.  

With this new venture into rug hooking though, I thought it was time to give it another go.  I really do wish I had a record of those early years of quilting. This way, I have another shot at getting all the ups and downs of a new art. So down the Bullet Journal (aka BuJo) rabbit hole, I fell...again.

This time though I knew what works for me and what doesn't.  I picked a quality journal with quality paper that didn't ghost or bleed through with whatever pen I used.  I also wanted all the materials of the journal to have a good texture.  (For me it's always about how does it feel in my hand).  With a little bit of investigation, I settled on the Scribbles That Matter Pro.  It has 160 gram paper weight and a nice soft vegan leather cover.  It's not too cutsy and had a lot of colors to choose from.  I settled on aubergine.  It has nice prenumbered pages, 4 big index pages, and little dot guides so you know where the center of the page is.   Oh and the pages are pure white - which apparently isn't the norm in journaling strangely enough.

Luckily, I had everything I needed...pens...stickers...rulers...templates.  But how to set it up?  I did some research, and shockingly, I couldn't find one for a "Maker" that used a journal just for their creative journey.  That seemed crazy to me.  I mean isn't there a video on anything you want to learn on YouTube?

I decided to just wing it.  I thought about how I wanted to use the journal and what purpose it would serve.  I wanted to keep it minimal, personal and low maintenance.  I don't want journalling to become a chore.  Things that I wanted to include in it where:

• An index
• To-Do List
• Blog Ideas List
• Books/Videos I like
• Names/Emails
• 2025-2026 hooking tracker
• A big section for Projects
• A big section for Class notes 
• A list of supplies I bought/where/how much

That didn't seem too difficult.  Also, I set up some rules for myself.  I wanted my journal to look well put together but not become a form of creative expression in itself.  I also wasn't going to worry about imperfections.  My handwriting wasn't good in school and it hasn't gotten any better after 30 years of keyboarding.  (But I can type about 90 wpm - just 'sayin').

I've sprinkled what the pages look like around the post.  Like I said nothing fancy, but still I like to have everything rug hooking in place.  I have a feeling that a big part of hooking is traveling to meet other hookers.  What better way to keep everything straight than a little journal?

I'll get to put that to the test because this weekend is my first Hook-In.  Don't worry, I'll take pictures and fill you next time!

Now for this week's . . .

Rug Watch

The pink grapes were hard again. I really think that part of the issue is that the pattern wasn't plainly drawn.   When I take pictures, I can see the lines well enough, but when you are hooking they all kinda jumble together.  Might be the age of the pattern.  I really am enjoying doing the grape leaves though! 

So, What Have You Been Up to Creatively? 

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Let's Talk Gatekeeping on Off the Wall Friday

Ain't THAT the truth!

It's an odd place to be.. .a 35 year veteran of one craft .... quilting and a rank amateur of another... rug hooking.  After doing something for 30 years, you get to know most of the answers.  Diving in deep on rug hooking, the more I know, the more I realize I don't know.  Luckily, I've found a circle of ladies that are happy to share their opinions on things (and let me tell you, rug hookers are strong in their opinions).  One of my favorite 90 minutes of the week is the Saturday rug hook-in sessions, Cindi Gay hosts.  There anybody can bring their project and just hook and listen and

Psalm 12, Nina-Marie Sayre, 2001

chat...and it's free.    It's amazing what you can learn when you listen in on one of these hook-in's.  They are so free with their knowledge.

Recently, I heard the story about how when a new hooker asked another hooker if she could try her hook to see if she liked that kind....the lady promptly said no.  As you can imagine, the asker was taken aback and embarrassed.  The story brought back memories of older more experienced quilters being "mean girl" cruel to me.  It also brought memories of the class 25 years ago where fellow classmates Phillipa Naylor and Christine Fries generously filled in the gaps of my limited knowledge, so I was able to make my first art quilt.  Not for the first time, do I wonder, where would I be if they hadn't helped me that year.  That quilt gave me hope that I too, could maybe become an artist.  

That's why gatekeeping really boils my blood.  For those of you not up on the latest slag:

I don't think we find it so much in quilting, but I have heard of it more in rug hooking.  There are teachers who are afraid to teach too much worrying that a student won't return if they've learned too much.  There are people who will call copyright on the simplest designs.  For that matter, in the world of rug hooking, if you buy a pattern, you are only allowed to make one rug from that pattern.  I could go on, but I don't want to malign all rug hookers under this rant because there many, many generous ladies...  But still, I've seen it enough where it makes me do a double take...like What did they just say?

I find the whole idea of gatekeeping foolish and counterproductive.  In the words of Mother Teresa, "As we serve others we are working on ourselves; every act, every word, every gesture of genuine compassion naturally nourishes our own hearts".  You never know what you'll learn by helping someone else, but you do know you will learn.  Gatekeeping your knowledge will just end up with you creating in a little box of your own making.  

Not to mention, why do Gatekeepers think they know so much and only they are entitled to that knowledge.  Like everyone knows there is nothing truly original in this world.  I mean how did they learn it?  Someone - somewhere had to open a gate to teach them right?

From How to Steal like an Artist, by  Austin Kleon

Like I said, annoying!  I could rant some more, but I'm choosing to be the kind of rug hooker that lays it all out there for the world and to that end....

On this week's

Rug Watch....I finished the Melon and now it's on to more grapes.  This time I got smart and am doing all the same value grapes at once which makes gradating them easier.  Looking at my progress, I'm noticing that I should start designing my next.  I have a good idea what it's going to be but I'll save that for another post.

So, What Have You've Been Up to Creatively?

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

A Little Yellow Goes a Long Way on Off the Wall Friday

Thank you all for so enthusiastically joining the We Do Not Care Club, Quilter's Edition.  I'm making a list for the next meeting.  Feel free to email me any additions you would like to make.  

It's been a busy few weeks with my deep dive into rug hooking continuing.  I managed to finish the little flower project:

Little Flower, Nina-Marie Sayre 8" by 8" 
Hooked Wool

I'm all happy with this.  The wool was super suspect, but it taught me that really you can hook anything that will make loops.  Also, it solidifies in my mind what kind of hooking I will eventually do. 

Also, drum roll please...I finished the grapes on my current project.  Looking at them now, I might go back and pull some out to do them again.  They are the kind of thing that you really need to see them in mass to see which ones aren't working quite right.  The whole thing with rug hooking is that YOU decide where the gradations go.  Like I said, some might need to be redone.  But before I do that, I decided to go on to the watermelon.  

The yellow is so much fun.  It's gradates from light to dark.  Watching the yellows blend so seamlessly together is very cool.  

Speaking of Yellow, 

Two weeks ago, our local historical society unveiled a sunflower field for its first season.  Unbeknownst to the general public, they made a deal with a local whiskey distillery that if the distillery would provide the seeds, the historical would plant the sunflowers at a historical farm they acquired.  The next thing you know, come August, we have 1.2 million sunflowers growing as far as the eye can see.  It certainly made a grand statement as the historical society intended.  Blessed as we are, its the next town over.  The nice thing is that the public was invited to visit and enjoy all the yellow. Thousands came to walk among the sunflowers.   Seeing it really took your breath away.  

The seeds will be harvested in September and given back to the distillery to make sunflower whiskey.  

I call that a win-win.  

Hooking the yellow this weekend, brought back to mind enjoying the field on a hot Sunday afternoon with my family.  It was the highlight of the summer for sure.

As always, it's the simple things.  

So, What Have You've Been Up to Creatively?

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

We Do Not Care Club - Off the Wall Friday Edition

We interrupt your regular scheduled programming to bring you the Off the Wall Friday's 

We Do Not Care Club

Quilter's Edition 

Founded by Melani Sanders for perimenopausal, menopausal and post-menopausal women 

Our Founder, Melani Sanders 

Today's Announcements:

As quilters, we do not care if you feel we already have enough fabric; we will buy as much as we like, with no particular purpose in mind. It's our money.  We will spend it anyway we want.  (That goes for thread and notions as well.)

We do not care if you don't want the quilt we made for you.  We spent hundreds of hours and dollars on it.  Take the damn quilt.

We do not care if a quilt at Walmart is a lot cheaper.  We don't sleep well under things made by cheap Pan-Asian labor. For that matter, we don't sleep well period.

We do not care if our scissors are the only ones you can find in the house.  Make your will before touching our fabric scissors.  No really we're serious...make...your...will.

We do not care if we haven't finished our last quilt before we started a new one.  We like starting new projects and this isn't a sprint... it's a marathon.

We do not care if quilting is considered an old lady's hobby.  Age is state of mind, not a number and we are Creatives, not geriatrics. Show some respect.

We do not care if we bought our fabric at a quilt shop, a box store, thrift store or yard sale.  It's pretty.  We like it.  It sews.

We do not care if you think our quilt is not art. Art is not always framed and you are not as smart as you look. 

We do not care if you want us to hem your pants.  We do quilting, not alterations.

We do not care how traditionally we are supposed to be creating our quilts.  It's our quilt; we will make it any damn way we want. 

We do not care if you think our new sewing room made a better guest bedroom.  We do not want guests.  We want a nice quiet place to sew.  

We do not care if you walk in while we are sewing in our bras.  We are hot whether you think so or not. 

We do not care if you don't like the colors in our latest quilt.  If we wanted your opinion, we would have asked for it.  We are no longer taking comments from the peanut gallery.   If you don't know what a peanut gallery is - google it.

And finally, for my bloggers who have stuck with me through thick and thin over the last 16 years...

We do not care if nobody is blogging anymore.  We like blogging since it creates a sense of community and connection.  We will keep blogging until it doesn't give us joy.  Then we'll stop. 

That concludes this session of the We Do Not Care Club, Quilter's Edition.  Since, I have many, many more rants in me, I am sure it won't be the last.  

So, What Do You Not Care About?

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

A Little Flower on Off the Wall Friday

 As I hook my way through the grapes, I've been watching video lessons at Cindi Gray's "Rug Hooking Journey".  One of the chapters was this Little Flower pattern.  Cindi designed this little project for those who wanted to do more than just a square as their first project.  Originally, I skipped it - since I'm kinda of a "go big or go home" type of girl.  Now though, it looked like a nice palette cleanser to the grapes.  

The Little Flower, Cindi Gay

Oh this looked fun! First, I pulled out the sampler pack of backings I had bought.  It contained fat quarters (which in the hooking world is 18" by 30") of the four main backings rug hookers are using right now - burlap, monk's cloth, rug warp and linen.  It seems that people have a variety of strong opinions of what backing they like.  So far, I tried the monk's cloth and found it too loosey goosey for me.  The linen I like because of the texture, slight smell and tons of little spots to put your hook.   Next up....Rug Warp ... which is Cindi's preferred backing.

Starting the Flower 

I traced out the pattern which is about 8" by 8" and grabbed a hand full of reds, greens and browns strips.  One thing I'm going to have to get used to is not having a full stash of wool at my disposal.  I honestly don't want a full stash (since a ridiculously huge stash of cotton is enough for one woman), but I will need a "working" stash.  Right now, I was blessed with a gifting of a small stash from a friend from John C. Campbell ... plus a hand full of scraps I bought at a local thrift store.  (These I froze/sun baked several cycles to kill off any potential moth larva).  In the thrifted wool I found my choices.  

Putting in the Border Line 
Note to self: Next time just draw it instead of trace 
So it will be straight

What's great about the exercise is that I'm finding out what wool felts up and is thick enough to hook nicely.  Some of the scraps I used for the flower are so thin that they nearly wouldn't hook.  Not to mention rug warp isn't as forgiving as linen having more of a set even weave to it.  But little by little I got the rhythm, and the flower got hooked.  One thing I liked was the messy texture of the looser thinner wool - it gave the flower this really pretty style. It's like you can't really tell where the loops are. I used bits and pieces of  greens of conventional hooking wool so they have more rigid loops.  Andddddd now, I'm working my way through the background.  

What I got so far!

One thing I'm learning is that all those years of piecing hand dyeds together for an overall effect wasn't wasted.  I easily am reaching for strips to hook without much thought knowing instinctually they will in the end melt into one. 

Another WIP exercise with little pieces all working together as one 
(I really need to finish this - it's got potential!)

All of this - by the way - was one morning of hooking.  It sure turned into a more fun exercise than anticipated.  Apparently, I am all in on this rug hooking journey.  

I wanted to thank everyone for the encouraging comments.  It's so nice to have my own cheering squad.

So, while I've been playing with wool...

(Linking with Kathy's Slow Stitch Sunday )

What Have You Been up to Creatively?

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Grapes on Off the Wall Friday

Okay, I'm not one to complain, but who ever thought putting 4 values of wool strips in one little thumb print size circle sounded like a fun, needs to take a long look at their definition of fun!  I spent my rug hooking time this week doing gradated grapes.  In 4 different gradations.  In two different purples.  Not only is it a lot of work trying to get your loops somewhat smooth in little circles but also it's a lot of, "so where is the light source for this grape?  Is that dark enough?  Is this one of the 1,  2, 3, 4 light to dark grapes?  

Okay, I am one to complain.  But I'm the one that chose a project that was specifically meant for a teacher's workshop when I've only been doing this for less than a year.  This is as far as I've gotten:

And really, when one isn't working out, you unhook it in a second and put it back it beacause - ya know - it's the size of your thumb.  To remind you all - this is what this is supposed to look like...

I do have detailed instructions so there is that....

No worries, I'll get through!

This week I continued on with my "The Rug Hooker's Journey" course with Cindi Gay.  It's taken me a while to get into the rhythm of this course, but I think I finally found it.  Cindi Gay is an experience rug hooking teacher who has taken her mission to the internet. Her site has so much information, it's hard to decide where to start. I started with the free videos on youtube  (which are many), then moved on to the free content on her website (which is a ton), to finally joining the paid of membership of the official Rug Hooker's Journey (which is well worth it).  There you can just take your time working your way through courses that start at the very beginning and move into more involved weekly live lessons. Something that Cindi does which is what truly sold it, is that she has a weekly free Hook-In where you can just show up

and hook - chat and ask questions.  It's so fun!   You get to know her and her style.  The lessons on Tuesdays are live so you can ask questions in live time, or they are recorded if you can't make it.  After watching a few lessons, I'm officially asking my boss if I can work an earlier shift so I can get home to rug hook (can't wait to see the look on his face!  But 15 months in, he knows how I am).  I really like Cindi's style - down to earth, just enough content to be interesting but not to be overwhelming  - confident but not obnoxious.  

The lesson that I tackled this week was on composition, and it was so good...I put it on my "ideas for a blog post" list once I play with some exercises.  

That's what's up on my new rug hooking journey....

What Have You Been Up to Creatively?

(Linking with Kathy's Slow Stitch Sunday)

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Onto Autumn Fruit on Off the Wall Friday

Shirley, hooked by Kyoko Okamura, 40" by 37"

 So, I'm onto my 2nd big project- Autumn Fruit designed by Pearl McGown & Jane McGown Flynn.  I'm still pretty shocked that I got this lovely pattern on linen with all the wool kitted out and class instructions all for $20 on eBay.  The more I looked at the project, the more I realized what an amazing deal it was.  Not to mention, it's a perfect 2nd project.  First it will teach me to follow a pattern and also shows me how to gradate the pattern to give it depth.  

It was given as a Northern McGown Teachers Workshop by Kyoko Okamura on July 17, 2018. (So nearly 8 years to the day from when I started it.)  The project comes with all the wool plainly labeled, a lesson in color planning and then detailed directions on how the fruit needed to be hooked.  This is where we started with the maker ending on the fourth step or so  :

The strips are in #7 cut (7/32).  I don't happen to have that die size, so I'll be using #6 cut (6/32nd or 3/16th's) I mean how much a difference can that be?  The lady who started this did exquisite work.  Her loops all are super - super even.   It's a bit intimidating but I put my big girl pants on, silenced the critic committee in my head and got the peach leaf done.  Not super even, but color placement is right and it looks fine.  

Next in the directions where the plums.  But, reading the directions carefully, I could tell that this is where the maker decided to leave the directions behind. (I mean who hasn't done THAT!)  She followed the color placement like the pear with the values gradating to show the shape of a round plums.  This is her version, and you can see how gorgeous her work is - 

But Kyoto went off of the actual picture that the pattern was based on.  Many rug patterns are made from traditional paintings and rugs. So her directions, had you using a whole different color and playing with values of the plums as a whole not the individual spots in them.  Bravely, I ripped out the beautiful loops of the maker and decided to trust in Kyoko's directions.  Taking loops out in rug hooking is easy since there are no knots - so with a tug here and a tug there - the plums disappeared.  That's when I realized that all the colors the maker had used were completely different.  

I spent yesterday putting in the plums and the leaves.  I experiemented with using a #3 cut (yep - that's 3/32nd - see you're gettin' the hang of this!) for the stem of the leaf. The color was the same and I wanted to see how the little loops looked with the 6.  Traditionally, most rugs are hooked with loops that are only 2 size difference - but I can see me totally blowing that off.  I mean really - rug hooking for me is about  texture and line and you can't play with texture and line without adding scale to it.  

They totally look different.  Not better not worse but you can see why she decided to go her own way. This is right though by the pattern and how Kyoko intended.

This is where I am so far - WoW!  this is turning into quite a lesson in value! One thing I love about it is that it's so easy to sit down and hook for 20-30 minutes at a time.  Quilting had turned into a big production that I never seem to have enough energy or time for.  I'm  self-aware enough to realize this is more a Nina issue rather than a quilting issue.  Apparently, a wool strip measured in 32nds isn't as intimidating at this season in life.  

Thanks though for going along on this rug hooking journey with me....

Onto Cool Things I've found....two treasures this month....

1. Hartman Hooks (Irish Hook) - now most people don't realize what a find this is  - but rug hookers know!  In 1988, an Irish man designed these beautiful rug hooking tools out of yew wood and brass.  An American woman distributed them here for the last 30 years.  Recently both retired and the hooks which were a staple in the rug hooking world became scarce.  After much research, I found a yarn shop up in Maine which had the #5 Ergo Hook as a back up for my #6 and the #3 Ergo for fine work.  (Both at good prices!)  The thing about hooks is that the hand wants what the hand wants and my hand loved the Hartman Ergo.  I did find out that the original designer's son is still making them in Ireland, so you can order them from EBay and Etsy but then they have to be imported and it's a whole expensive production.  So now with three Hartman hooks I'm set!

   

   Who knew such a little tool could be such a pain to find?

   
   
2.  My husband and I love thrifting and I'm always on thelook out for something unique.  Today I found the quilting book - Yoko Saito's Houses, Houses, Houses.  It's such a gorgeous translation of her Japanese book.  The book explains in minute detail how to design a small houses quilt.  Then there are directions and patterns to make them into 3D projects or a Block of the Month quilt.  All of it, I believe is done by hand applique. This has me thinking, I could do a version featuring my small town.  
   
   
   

That's what I've been doing - 

What Have You've Been up to Creatively?

(Linking to Kathy's Slow Stitch Sunday)

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter