Creations - Quilts, Art, Whatever by Nina-Marie Sayre

Friday, July 4, 2025

Cross Over Benefits on Off the Wall Friday

This week's progress

To all my US readers, Happy 4th - I feel so blessed to be an American. Hope you get some time with ones you love.

WoW everyone, thank you for the warm welcome back. It's always nice to see the internet being used for actually bringing people together. It's funny, the minute I finally got myself writing and creating, all the normal ideas would pop in my head. My workflow the last 15 years have been that during my week, I'll get ideas on blog posts and then jot them down quick before they're lost. For the last 6 months there weren't any and all of a sudden now they're too many!

But today, I picked the elephant in the room - Cross Over Medium

At first, when I decided to try to my hand at rug hooking, I thought, I'll just keep this as my little side gig secret. It's something to do in the evenings while I indulge my deep dive on YouTube (don't ask but let's just say my husband thinks there might need to be an intervention soon.) But the more I learned about rug hooking, the more I enjoyed it and could see similarities it has to art quilting. Plus, it's fun to learn all the little nuances of it (something that I conquered with quilting long ago).

Recent things I learned:

After MUCH research, the easiest and most economical way to cut wool strips, is to use a Sizzix system. Sizzix is a die cutting system that is mostly used for paper crafts, but it can be used for other materials. They did try to market it for quilting but have since dropped that line. Thank God, the Old Tattered Flag came up with the brilliant idea of using it to easily cut strips of wool in different widths. The whole system might cost you about $400, but its WAY cheaper than any other wool cutter they have on the market. Traditional cutters are machined which makes

them expensive. Plus, as the craft gets less popular they are harder to find. I found the Sizzix to cut quickly, efficiently and with very straight lines. (Part of the issues is that the strips are cut in 32nds widths from about 3-10) That all said there is no reason you can't cut your strips with a rotary cutter - although I have YET to hear a rug hooker say that - lol! Let me know in the comments if you want me to talk more about this cutting system.
Most rug hookers are like quilters, they are a traditional lot. They like to have patterns and they like patterns to show them exactly how to make it. That said, I do think more and more hookers are branching out to make their own design. This week I sat in on Cindi Gay's weekly Saturday Hook -In. It's free and there were about 12 ladies just hooking for about an hour chatting over Zoom. People showed what they are working on and new people asked questions. In the discussion, I learned a lot of hookers struggle with value and shading (that sounded familiar). With a little research I learned about an app - Value Study App - finally a little app that will easily give you value study of picture. I thought - WoW - where has this been all my life! The android version is still in beta testing but I didn't have any issue getting mine to work on my Samsung Galaxy.

Apparently, I'm not the only Sayre in this house that needed a change. My husband decided last year that he wanted learn how to paint - yes not my house but actual paintings. He first looked for painting classes locally and not finding any, he did what we all do lately...turned to YouTube. Since he's retired, he then spent quite a bit of time watching videos until he started to follow some teachers he really liked. He set up a little painting space in our basement (14 rooms in this Victorian and he chooses the basement which to me is like a dungeon) and started painting. Over the last year, he's turned out some really nice pieces but his last series is kinda crazy good - no, seriously - here they are

They are from copy-right free vintage photos from around 1910 done in oil. He recently entered them in a local art show and won his first ribbon. He's entered this show before but always with his woodworking pieces. Imagine the surprise from the gallery owner when she saw he could paint. (I knew exactly how she felt- I had no idea he has progressed this far in a year!)

That's right he taught himself off of YouTube. Now for the first time in our marriage all he talks about is paint rather than wood. He did easily make his own frames and stretched canvases. Plus, he's planning trips to art museums rather than me for a nice change.

That's the Cross Over Madness that is going on in the Sayre's house ...

What are You Up to Creatively?

Friday, June 27, 2025

New Beginnings on Off the Wall Friday

The design so far

So for the last month, I've said I'm going to write my blog on Sunday afternoons. For 15 years, I always managed to have Thursdays off for quilting and posting my blog. Then in the last year with a new job change, I'm working Monday - Friday. Go figure that now that I'm looking at 60, I'm so tired Thursday nights after work that it's become more of a chore to post rather than the pleasure it's always been. Plus somewhere along the line, I lost my creative mo-jo.

Frame my husband made for me

FINALLY though, after my time at John C. Campbell Folk School, I found it! I told myself, I'm just going to go relax with no agenda in mind accept to enjoy myself. (I barely even took any pictures!) I
took a 5 day rug hooking class with Linda Bell. Rug hooking, for anybody who doesn't know is where you take thin strips of wool (think 1/8th-1/4th in thick), use a hook to pull them through a backing making little equal loops. The loops make lines and the lines fill in patterns. The patterns can be abstract or representational. It's a very old school tactile craft and I've totally fallen in love.

While at JCC, we learned how to make a pattern, cut wool, and practiced making little loops. Hooking the loops is something it takes 5 minutes to learn and a LOT of practicing to get right. Some ladies in the room got it right away - that would NOT be me. The more I hooked though, the more even they became.

Quickie Pattern designed in less than 30 minutes

I was working on a design that I quickly drew up using a picture in one of my books as inspiration. When I say quickly, I mean like 10 minutes. So crazy! Then without my usual process of doing value drawings and auditioning color palettes, I quickly came up with a fly by seat of my pants plan of attack. Really it's not a bad idea to work out of your comfort zone every now and again. Besides this was all about the hooking.

Things I learned that week

curves are harder to hook evenly than straight lines
light colors show imperfect loops easier than darker colors
remember to stretch your hands, arms and shoulders regularly
A frame that rotates is a true blessing
Wool is WAY more expensive than cotton

Wool Strips - called - Noodles

I know there are still plenty of rug hookers out there, but I've also learned that it's relatively an unknown art. I thought I would write a series of posts in the upcoming weeks that will take you along on my rug hooking adventure.

I want to thank everyone who has hung with me as I've made some creative adjustments this last year. Honestly, I know that creativity ebbs and flows as with most things in life, but I was beginning to worry. I just had to keep reminding myself that I spent the last year using a lot of my creative energy solving problems at work (which I totally loved and still love!)