Rhapsody in Red Jan Haines

At the beginning of this project I thought I would struggle with the colour red.  While I like  the color red I have always found it hard to work with.  However, my design came from lichens and as you can see, as lichen grows, so did the rug.  It is 99.9% wool fabric and yarn on a Monks Cloth base with a wool blanket backing.  The size of the rug is 17½” x 24”.  Now it is finished I really am pleased with it.

Colour Wheel Proddy Sample Miranda Auckland

I decided to do a spiral on the hessian and blend the colours into each other. I used fleece fabric and cut the tabs about 3/4” by 2”.

I drew the pattern onto the right side of the hessian and used a spring hook. I did a row around the edge first and then did various rows of the different colours to see how they looked. I got to the stage when I could not see the lines so I had to start on the reverse side. It was not easy working on the wrong side as I could not see how the colours were blending.
It was so thick when I finished that the edges curled up so I have sown some hessian tape around the edge at the back.
I am pleased with the result.

 

Rapsody in Red Debbie Marias

I wanted to experiment with needle felting and rag rugging in this piece after seeing a piece in Rug hooking magazine.  I used a combination of cotton printed fabric, old tights and t-shirts basing the design on crazy patchwork.  I thought I would try a different shape this time so chose the heart design.

A Splash of colour Mary Jane Peabody

I started with the idea of doing a hit or miss landscape, and went from there...I did like Hundertwasser's work, and if it influenced me directly, it was in the design of the river, and the style of the trees

A Splash of Colour Janet Hull

My Splash of colour is a Beach Hut scene they have always caught my imagination and I wanted to make something that would go onto my grand childrens bedroom wall. The picture is done on fine linen backing I hand dyed the wool for the deep colouring. It measures 14"x9". I bound the edges with carpet wool and lined the back with light weight wool material

A Splash of Colour Jenny Johns

Hot Gossip Great burst of colour.Currently working on 2 word themes,so seemed ideal for hot gossip. 2 pieces both 10.5" x 14.5"...mixed materials,hooked and prodded on hessian.Unfinished at present.

A Splash of Colour Jan Haines

THE TOADSTOOL RUG

Absolutely loved Friedensreich Hundertwasser, and wondered why I had'nt come across him before. The colours and repetition were what inspired this rug.  I have always wanted to use toadstools in a rug design and this gave me the opening I needed.  Thanks Fred!  The design came easily for once and the decision to use lots of different shaped toadstools made sense to me as I wanted repetition without too much uniformity.The rug is entirely punch needled using handspun Jacob wool on the borders, handspun and hand dyed wools in the toadstools and Axminster rug yarn for the green background.  The whole rug is made on Monks Cloth with a woven wool backing fabric.  The size is 21 1/2” by 15 1/2”.

A splash of colour Jenny Bealing

 

I must admit my heart sank when I saw the subject for this challenge, my opinion of Hundertwasser’s work was very low infact I disliked it quite intensely, however I started to look at the Google images and found a link to his architecture. A real eye opener and I was amazed by how much I liked some of his ideas. At first I tried collage to see if this would aid my design process but eventually worked out a picture with oil pastels which was then transferred to a piece of embroidery linen.

I have not just used colour in this piece but a variety of different textures as well following ( I hope ) Hundertwasser’s beliefs and practices. So as well as hooking in the traditional manner with a variety of fabrics I also cut the tops of the loops in some areas specifically to represent trees and grass on roof tops and also used a form of chain stitch done with the rug hook.

At the moment the work is finished as far as the hooking is concerned but I have not yet decided how the piece will be finished, mainly because I think that I will probably try and use it in something.

A Splash of Colour Karen Walker

When I looked at the various pictures by Friedensreich Hundertwasser I can honestly say they did not float my boat! However, what I did like was his choice of colours and the way he distorted shapes. If you look closely some of his pictures contain houses within squares and this became my inspiration for my rug.

The initial colour choice for my rugs came from the artist and I was lucky enough to have the colours I needed in my stock so I had no need to further dye.

The rug is hooked on hessian and the design was drawn on roughly by hand.   I decided on those measurements to allow for the design I wanted and so that I can eventually hang it over a door, also it was a project small enough I could finish quickly.

The material used is a combination of woollen flannel, plaid, blanket and rug wool. I used only hooking as a technique as the size of the rug is small. In my first attempt at the sky I used flannel, unfortunately, as I could not get the effect I wanted in such a small space, I changed to rug wool. In finishing off I am ashamed to say I yet again whipped the edge! I did consider other finishing techniques but, as the hanging space is limited and I like the whipping finish it won the debate.

I enjoyed the whole project and I do like the finished result .... just need a door now!

A Splash of Colour June Gregory

My interpretation of A Splash of Colour, I have always liked to splash in puddles so this idea came to mind,not straight away though, because I was thinking of something really arty, but I am not a very arty person as drawing doesn't come easy to me but I hope that you like it. It is 10ins x10ins on Monks cloth punch hooked in 100 percent wool yarn.

A Splash of Colour Miranda Auckland

When I looked at Friedensreich Hunderwasser's work I did not like it as I found it naive, unbalanced and odd! but I did like the bright colour.

My design came from a photograph of a child's dress that I took in India. I decided to do a similar pattern but to use much brighter colours.
Originally I intended to use yellow-coloured hessian and leave some of it showing and I also intended to both hook and prod but as I started working I decided just to hook and to use wool.I also ended up covering all the hessian!
I drew the design in my book first, then drew it freehand onto the hessian and worked on it quite erratically doing a bit here and a bit there to see how the colours worked together.
I added some Indian braid that I already had and I made the circles out of felt and embroidered them. I intended to sew mirrors in the middle but I was unable to get any large enough so I got some sequined/beaded flowers for the middle.
The finished piece measures 9" by 13".
I have loved doing this piece of work and did it straight away. It took about a week in all

Wild and Beautiful Heather Woodward

Size 9" worked on monks cloth. Second piece worked on monks cloth.

Punch hooked with hand dyed yarn and needle felted edge with hand dyed sheep fleece.
Inspired by the interest I have in the Green Man I have used his face in other peices of art.

A Splash of Colour Debbie Mairas

Here is my Hundertwasser - again using my 13" by 18" frame. hooked onto hessian using T-shirts and all sorts of patterned cotton fabrics and some sparkly ones. I have decided for my Hundertwasser samples to use different backing material samples and to use some different techniques that I learnt from an experimental workshop with Lynne Stein - watch this space!

Wild and Beautiful Debbie Marais

 Snowdrop
It is hooked from all sorts of fabric, mainly old t-shirts onto hessian. I haven't finished the edging yet as I want to do something different to what I normally do which is an overwrap stitch using fabric. The image is 13" by 18". I did try to do it smaller but I really wanted a more voluptuous snowdrop so it got bigger! I have always loved snowdrops and that was the first thing that popped into mine when i saw the brief in January. I just drew the design onto the hessian and then redrew it when I wanted it to be bigger.
One of the reasons that this is so late is that I had by some bizarre coincidence been working on a piece inspired by Hundertwasser. I will finish it and do some more samples by the end of June otherwise I will have nothing to do!! Looking forward to meeting people at the workshop in July.

Wild and Beautiful Linda Bishop

 This is for the January assignment to hook with different materials with a theme of "Wild and Beautiful."  I used a ball of thick and thin yarn for which I had not yet found a purpose.  The colors aren't very exciting but I decided it would make a nice sunset/mountain/desert hooked mat.  [My husband wants this for his office - probably a resting place for his coffee mug.  I guess these colors would conceal a coffee splash!]  The colors also remind us both of the West Texas high plains, where sunsets can be magnificent and the terrain quite harsh.I drew a few curved lines on the backing and started hooking.  The yarn was easy to hook - it was fluffier than it looked.  I had to roll out the yarn in color-phases so that I could get to the colors I wanted. I used what I think is a linen background which was easy to work with except the fibers split sometimes.  The yarn is 100% wool.  I whip-stitched around the edge of the piece with needlepoint yarn and I plan to sew a backing of wool plaid fabric.  The resulting mat is about 6" X 9".

Samples Mary Jane Peabody

 So I was able to put this exercise to use right away, to solve the problem of how to hook a tiny little rug for a dollhouse, a project I had been meaning to do for my friend for some time

 The next one I tried was a piece of rather loosely woven tweedy wool, and that worked pretty well, both for hooking and proddy

This was a piece of polartec fleece and it was just terrible to work on. I had to basically cut a hole with a seam-ripper tool to get my hook in and pull each loop through. So that quickly went into the "never again" category

Wild and Beautiful Lynda Kinnard

My Wild and Beautiful Frog. Thought of wild animals and the wonderful colours they can be. Remembered going into the caves on Lanzarote when my parents lived there, and seeing the fluorescent, brightly coloured frogs who live in perpetual darkness. I have taken a little poetic licence and exaggerated their bright colours. I used the fine hooking technique on Hessian, using all recycled machine-knitted fabrics.

Wild and Beautiful Jenny Johns

The inspiration for this piece came from watching dolphins play around our boat when whale watching in New Zealand.I used a variety of materials on hessian, old bath puffs, satins,wool etc. Great fun hooking through and over the net for the sea spray. I used proddie and hookie method ,pulling T shirt into tubes for the waves.

The piece is 11x8 approx and I kept the shape irregular to follow the wild theme.

Wild and Beautiful Jennifer Rowles

This is my work for the wild and beautiful project. Last summer we visited Averbury and were lucky enough to walk around a crop circle there. This experience became my inspiration for the project. 
The design is of a crop circle made at a village called Sompting on the 25th of July 1990. I have used sari wool to outline the crop circle and the inner field as I hope it represents the energy which is so apparent when you have the good fortune to be able to walk a circle.

Tune into colour Debbie Marias

This  is a photo from my step-daughters wedding.  She has asked me to do a rug to commemorate the day.   I have used the paint charts to try and match the colours.  I have been gradually doing the colour pages but still find it difficult sometimes to match the exact shade of a colour as there are so many to choose from.  These are three different attempts focussing on different areas of the photo each time.  I know her favourite colour combinations are the ones shown in the main bouquet (colour sample one) the flower girls dress in the bottom LH corner of the photo (colour sample two).  The last is just a random selection of slightly different shades within the photo.  Next I am going to make up some samples of rugging to show her in April before I begin the main rug.  The aim is to finish it by their first anniversary at the end of July.  No mean feat alongside full time work and two children!! 

Wild and Beautiful Janet Hull

I started my rug with the dragonfly and lily, everything else evolved
around it. I dyed most of my wool which is blanket...I also used some textured and  sparkly threads in the dragonfly. It was done on an 8 cut. To finish off I have bound the edges with carpet wool and used tape to make a nice firm edge. It measures 12x12 inches.

Wild and Beautiful Wendy Lindsay

This rug measures 14 x 8 inches and was hooked on hessian. I used dyed wool flannel and skirt, along with some wool yarn for the dry sand and the white waves. It has been a while since I have actually sat down and hooked anything so I really enjoyed the whole process, including dying the wool for the sky. I think having a set time in which to finish the project was very good for me too – it really made me get on with it!

For me Wild and Beautiful is Sandwood Bay in Sutherland, on the far north-west coast of mainland Scotland. It is best known for its mile-long beach and Am Buachaille, a sea stack, and lies about 5 miles south of Cape Wrath. 

Wild and Beautiful Mary Jane Peabody

 

This is my "Wild and Beautiful" mat, 8.5" x 12" in size, and just made with cut wool that I had around. I was inspired by an antique folk art painting from the 1860s of a stately-looking cat on a rug.
I decided to add the "wild" by the colors I chose. Purples, greens and blues for the cat, and reds, oranges and yellows for the mat. Then I got stuck with what to use for the sky background, until I remembered one piece of wool I had dyed about three years ago.
I had collected about two cups worth of my "trimmings", the little bits you clip when starting or ending a strip of wool. I had soaked a piece of white wool, and then dumped all the little trimmed bits all over it, rolled it up, tied rubber bands around each end to keep it in a roll, and threw it into the dye pot for a while. It came out with a nice confetti sort of look:

So I found that piece of wool, and it worked out quite nicely for a "wild" sort of sky. Here is my finished piece (though it is not hemmed yet It was fun to make a small enough project to feel free to just fool around with color like this!

 

Tune into Colour Mary Jane Peabody

I started with a postcard from Rome, and then just picked snippets of all the colors I thought I would want to use if I were hooking it!

Different Foundation Samples Jan Haines

Working from right to left, the first sample at the top was on Woollen Blanket. I used a small hook and wool fabric, T-shirt, medium rug wool and thick rug wool, they all worked reasonably well but pulled up the fabric somewhat. For the centre piece I used a #14 Punch needle and wool yarn.  I did not like this much and moved on to the prodded square on the end, I cut the fabric 1/2” x 2” long and prodded through every other hole. I would be happy to use this  backing again.

The bottom righthand sample was worked on 16 count Tapestry canvas.  I used the #14 Punch needle again and it worked well and I would use it again on small projects. The prodded area is in Polar fleece cut 1/4” wide and 2” strips, it worked quite well.  The hook I used for the next area was a small one again, first row was a 1/4” cut of  wool fabric and it was a little tight to get through, the next rows were 1/8” cut and worked fine, nylon jersey fabric and satin ribbon all worked well in the following rows.  For small items I would use this again although it makes your fingers quite sore.

The final piece is on Silk scrim.  The hooking worked really well, I used wool fabric cut 1/4”, T-shirt and 1/4”cut Polar fleece and was pleased with the results of this.  The prodded area worked really well too.  The Punch needle area did not work, the silk is too slippery and as it is scrim it is not a tight enough weave, hence the poor display in this area. All the samples were worked with the fabrics in tambour frames. 

Different Foundation Samples Janet Hull

Floor Cloth
May try to make something in the future with it.

 Scrim
This is used for upholstery and was good for needle punching.
The Scrim is soft and sags a bit in a frame.

Wool blanket
Hooked well but did not like the punch needle as the threads split

Wild and Beautiful - Jan Haines

 

My design idea came from travelling along the Eynesford valley in Kent with husband driving and looking out at the winter hedgerows when all of a sudden the sun came out and the whole hedge lit up, the colours were fabulous.

The colours I used were many and they are the colours I saw in the sunlight that morning, the branches and twigs took on a purplish/red and the rose hips were like little light bulbs (I will always think of them as nature's light bulbs in future).  The lighter green grass on the bank in front of the hedge gradually darkened as the grasses grew up into the hedge.  It was a beautiful sight and there and then I knew I had my design.
I sketched the hedgerow on a small piece of paper, it looked OK but once it was coloured in I could see how it would work in fabrics.  I decided on the size and enlarged the draft on the photcopier.  I had decided to work on wool warp backing, so I traced off the design onto a piece of wedding veil  net (not mine I might add) and then onto the wool backing fabric.
The size of the piece was determined by my photocopier (it only enlarges to an A4 size) and as I wanted to get started I went with that size.
The materials I used was mainly wool fabric, some wool/acrylic mix yarn and also pure wool yarn and handmade felt.
The rug was hooked with a fine hook and when the wool yarns were'nt thick enough I used my hook to crochet them into a chain and then hooked them in. I had not done that before but it was helpful in keeping the colours working in between thicker cuts of fabric.  A lot of the fabrics I trimmed down to the size I needed as I went along.
The backing fabric I used was wool warp which was lovely to use.  It is like a woolly form of Monks Cloth.  It was easy to use and when it came to finishing off the back I crocheted around the edges close to the last row of hooking and folded the back over on the bottom edge and two sides and then folded the top edge over last and made a sleeve from it to run a dowel through to hang the work from.
I chose all the colours that I remembered seeing in the hedge at the time and gathered them all together and cut with my rotary cutter  a 1/4” to 1/8” so I had lots of little piles of fabrics.  I piled them all onto my cutting mat along with the yarns and the whole thing looked like an artist's palette.  I then started hooking, taking colours as I thought they would work – the main details were put in first as usual but the best bit was choosing which colour to put in next and what it would go next to etc.  I can sketch but always wanted to be able to paint like a real artist, I covered this with A level Art, but found I was better at the history than the painting.  This project made me realise you don't have to use paint to make a picture, wool is far more tactile and does'nt smell as much.

Wild and Beautiful - June Gregory

The piece is 9”x9”  worked on Monkscloth, with wool yarn. I had difficulty deciding on the pattern as there is so much beauty around us, and I am not very good at drawing, but  I walk my son’s  dog and so I see lot’s of fungus, the Toadstools that I have worked are poisonous and beautiful, I punch hooked the piece as I find punch hooking quicker and I like the overall effect you get with wool yarn when using a punch hook.

Wild and Beautiful Miranda Auckland

My first thoughts for ‘Wild and Beautiful’ were a landscape of the moors or perhaps a wild flower but whilst waiting to pick up my grandson from school I saw a beautiful, small bent pine tree. I sketched it and decided that it was beautiful and I have put it in a wild setting.

I decide to use the punch needle I bought at Reeth which I had not used. I began on a piece of Hessian but it was unsuccessful so I used some Monk’s cloth. As I was working from the back of the fabric I had to reverse my design.

I found the punch needle difficult to use but persevered. I did the green grassed area first, then the tree and finally the sky. I used rug wool in a mixture of shades for both the sky and the grass areas.

I then made the pine needles from wool, fixing them into place with a bead and used small blue flower-shaped beads on the right-hand side under the tree and orange wool for the flowers on the left. The finished piece is 8” in diameter but I felt it needed a border which is card with wool wrapped around it.

Wild and Beautiful Barbara Wilder

The piece I decided to do was inspired by the Great Whale Conservancy. The colours were a bit of a challenge and I have to admit were pulled out and altered on an almost regular basis!
I used monkscloth as a backing, and drew the design directly on to that, being a small piece I felt quite happy about tackling that, the piece it self is only 9" by 6".
It was worked mostly in wool #3 cut, I also used wool yarn to add texture, I really wanted to show the water falling from the whales tail and struggled to find the right effect, and ended up over hooking some slightly shiny wrap that came with flowers at Christmas. I finished the work by glueing felted material to the backing.

Colour Pages

Since I had a pile of old magazines around and a few gardening catalogs with plenty of flower photos it was fairly easy to build up a pile of cut-out pictures, and a bit longer to sort, arrange and glue them onto their own color pages. But it was fun, and it definitely helped to discern some of the colors, especially blue green and blue violet. I ended up doing two other pages, one for pinks and one for tans/browns. A good exercise. Mary Jane

Wild and Beautiful - Jenny Bealing

Working out my design was the most difficult part of the challenge perhaps because I live in such a wild and beautiful part of the country talk about spoilt for choice. In the end the design evolved more than being properly planned and is totally different to what I had first thought of.

I had a remnant of 22 count linen and decided to see how it would take hooking and with the lovely variegated colours of Batik yarn flowers and leaves suggested themselves. In some places I used the yarn double and in others single also a small amount of sari silk and t shirting for different textures. The finished piece is as near to 6” by 4” as I could make it.

As a real experiment I wanted to add a third dimension a butterfly hooked into netting (an unravelled bath scrub!). A real challenge to get the yarns to hold in the netting which needed to be at least 4 layers in depth stretched tightly on a small embroidery hoop. Several attempts were needed to make the butterfly look as I wanted it but in the end I loved the effect.

Colour Website

MaryJane has forwarded this colour website it really is worth a look http://design-seeds.com/  I am sure you will enjoy it.