Another Mat

I started a hit or miss scrap mat with stars. Each square is 6 inches and the mat is 4x3 squares so it will be about 24x18 inches. It should go pretty quick. Siobhan said she really likes it.

I also joined a group that makes quilts entirely by hand. I don't know if I'll actually ever make a quilt all by hand, but at least the blocks will be easily portable.

Watch This!

I watched this video and I have to say it is excellent! I couldn't embed it, but this is the link:
http://www.workersoftheworldrelax.org/

Finally Finished

The sheep mat is finally finished! I had 1 strip left over from the wool I dyed for the sky; talk about cutting it close! I was afraid I was going to run out. Sio had the idea to use white yarn for the clouds, and while I wasn't sure at first, once I started hooking the blue sky around them they blended in perfectly. Anyway, I really, really, really like this mat. It is my favorite thing I've hooked so far. I'll get some rug binding this week and sew the edges down, and then what should I do with it?

More Sheep!

I have gotten in a few hours of steady hooking over the last couple of days; it's been so nice out I've brought everything outside and sat in the yard. All the hills are done and I'm almost done with the ocean.I'll hopefully finish that today and tomorrow start on the sky. Both Sio and John said it reminds them of Newfoundland, which is good because that's what I'm looking for. I can trust Sio for an honest critique; she says I need to work a bit more on color choices if I want a more realistic look. She asked me if I have colors planned out before I start dyeing, and generally I only do in a broad kind of way. I don't know how realistic I'm trying to be though; I like the primitive style of rug the best.

The Corrs

Here's a lovely video of the Corrs doing a song called Silver Strand. What a lovely, haunting melody.

Update on Sheep Mat

I haven't spent as much time as I wanted to on the mat because I've been working on the star quilt and I've been pretty busy, too, with one thing and another. It turned out I needed to do another dye run in greens, so I finally got around to doing that yesterday. I hooked for a while yesterday and today, and this is turning into my favorite mat so far. The hill right in front of the barn is pretty close to how I want my hills to look. There is some contrast, but not too much. The foreground, and especially the middle hill, just have a bit too much. I'm not redoing anything, because over all, it's a very nice mat; but there's always room for improvement.

Hooking Rugs with Deanne Fitzpatrick

One of the things I need to do before I die is take one of Deanne's workshops. Her work is fabulous.

Northern!

John, Chris and I fished at Blackwell yesterday. There are 2 lakes out there, and we had been there last year fishing in the main part of the big lake. Johns friend at work told him that he's had success in the smaller part of the big lake, so we went there yesterday. John almost immediately hooked a decent bass on a minnow, and then another one on a leech. He and Chris were fishing with rattle traps too, and they both hooked small bass on those. I put a leech out but didn't catch anything, and John and Chris weren't catching anything else, either. John moved about 10 feet away from where we set up, and threw a minnow out. He got a nice hit, set the hook and pulled in a northern pike! It was the first northern he's caught since he was in Canada many, many years ago. Chris moved over there, and he caught one too; that was his first northern ever. So of course I took the last minnow and moved over there too, and after just a few minutes, WHAM! He attacked that minnow! I was fishing about a foot and a half or 2 feet down, but he splashed like crazy when he grabbed it and jumped partly out of the water. I was so excited! I didn't land him though; there was a line of weeds about a foot or so from shore, and I lost him in there. I should have set the hook harder, or twice. Anyway, it was still a lot of fun and we are fishing there again tomorrow.

Fishing and Baby Ducks

The baby ducks are hatching on the pond by Chris and Richards house, and they are so cute! There are 2 families that I saw and I got pictures of both of them. I also got a picture of John with a decent size bass, maybe around 12 inches. We have been paying attention to the lunar tables, and yesterday the best fishing time was between noon and two so we were out then Chris came too. John caught 5 fish, 4 bass and one very big bluegill, I caught an ok bass, a bluegill and this tiny little bass that was only about 6 inches long. It was so tiny, there was no way it could have swallowed the minnow I had on the hook. Chris didn't catch anything . We are going again today unless it's too cold.

We had Mothers Day at Chris and Rich's too. Rich barbecued hamburgers, Italian sausage and veggie stuff for Sio and Carla. I got a nice pic of mom, Sio and Carla too. Sio made a tasty strawberry pie, and I made brownie hot fudge sundaes.

I fixed the rug frame and pulled the sheep rug out. I am going to finish it in the next couple of weeks. I'm still working on the string quilt, too. I want to get a couple more blocks done so I can take them with me and do the handwork at the hospital tomorrow while mom is having her tests run. I saw another string quilt that was probably made in the 20's or maybe a bit before that. It was mostly shirtings, with a few solids thrown in and a couple of calico looking prints. The prints look earlier than the 20's. Anyway, it was about 6 inch squares sewn into 12 inch blocks and sashed with a medium blue solid. Overall, it was a light, summery looking quilt and I need a lighter weight one for summer. too. I might make it and just do the quilt top with a flannel back and just tie it

String Star Quilt

I have been thinking about a new quilt for our new bed ever since we got it before Christmas, but I just couldn't make up my mind about what I wanted. I finally decided on this String Star pattern. I have the pattern in a few different magazines and books, but this particular size diamond is from an old 1977 issue of Ladies Circle Patchwork Quilts. I am using paper diamonds to stabilize the bias edges and everything goes together very nicely. I am machine sewing the strings onto the paper, and then machine sewing the diamonds together, however I am sewing the muslin corner squares and muslin triangles in by hand. I may sew the blocks together edge to edge, or I might use sashing and a border. I was thinking of making the sashes out of scrap strips too, I don't know yet. The blocks will finish up at about 14 inches. This has been a popular pattern through the years to use up all those strips and strings left over from other projects. I am going to try and make this entire quilt without purchasing anything except a bit of off white muslin because i don't think I have quite enough. Every once in awhile muslin shows up at the resale shop so I'll start by looking there. Maybe I'll get lucky.