Progess is S L O W . . . Ü

I have been really busy with company and traveling these past few weeks.  I love having people visit and us journeying off-- besides making beautiful memories, or traveling to some of my favorite places, it makes me clean my house!!  Lord knows, I need me some "house-cleaning" time!!  LOL

In fact, I took pictures of my clean house so my one daughter could see that it actually happens that I don't have rug worms, needles and thread all laying about.  She's the "minimalist" of the family and has completely empty drawers and cabinets at her house.  Who actually "lives" like that?!  It's like going to a showroom where the cabinetry are fixtures so there's nothing in them ;-O hahahaha!!!  Just kidding Dootie... I LOVE YOUR HOUSE!!!  Ü

Anywho, with all the company and traveling, that makes for less needlework time with one exception...  When Jordan (minimalist daughter) came to visit, we had a week of nothing but needlework time-- OH YEAH!!! Ü

I only got a little bit completed but I worked on a lot.
I made these table runners for Christmas gifts to my family in December but hadn't quilted them yet so they were on the top of the list.  I got 3 out of the 5 quilted and bound that week.  They are now with their owners and out of my hair.  I'll post a picture of the other two when they are completed.
The lighting is bad on these and didn't really capture the colors very well ;-(
They are really pretty cute!!

At the end of March, I got to attend the Virginia Rugfest in Mechanicsville, VA.  It was fun and the displayed rugs were total "eye candy" Ü
I took a few photos of the ones I liked.  I was drawn to the primitive style of them Ü  Enjoy!!

A little background information on this sampler rug...  It's inspired by a Dear Jane quilt but it's a RUG!!!  My "Yahookers" rug group members took this project on.  Rug Hooking Magazine even did an article on the group Ü  They signed on to do it and complete by a certain date.  The design of the blocks and the border was strictly up to the hooker as well as the color-way.  So far, from the completed rugs I have seen, they are all different and BEAUTIFUL!!! Ü  Such creativity in that group.  This rug is gorgeous!!!!

I loved the stone wall on this one Ü

My prim faves...

I LOVE anything Karen Kahle!!!  Ü

These handbags are fantastic!!  I NEED to make one of these for me!!!  Ü

Last one...

As for my hooking...

I'm still at the same place on my "I Do" rug but I love how it's looking so far Ü  I've gone out of my box for the color-way-- I hope you like it too Ü
I accidently hooked a place on it in green that was supposed to be tan so I'll need to do some "reverse hooking" on this one before I proceed any further ;-(
I'll keep posting my progress on this one as I go...

Quilting!!! 

While Jordan was here we had some quilting fun!!!  This is her "Jelly Roll".  She combined all the fabrics herself from pieces she had purchased individually.  I LOVE her color sense!!  

  Her Jelly Roll became this "Jelly Roll 1600" quilt-- this was so much fun to do!!!

 She likes "Modern" quilting and I've always been more of a "Traditional" quilter but she's tugging at me and I'm strongly leaning to the dark (Modern) side Ü.

I love mixing and matching these bold prints together!!!  I bought this bunch of fabric while she was here and I'm excited to see what comes out of it Ü

Punch Needle

I'm almost done with this large project-- it measures 5 3/4" X 9".  I think I'll go back to some smaller Punch Needle projects Ü  This has taken me forever to do.  I think maybe because I'm doing it with 6 strands might be the reason.  It's way more tedious getting the 6 strands of floss punched through as opposed to 3 strands or fewer.  I only have the grass to do now and wa la... it's finito!!!

My last bit o' news is...

This week I treated myself to a dyeing class from Karen Rose, a beautiful wool dyer in my rug guild (Colonial Rug Hookers of Northern Virginia).  There were 10 of us in the class and we all did a different type of dyeing with a 1/2 yard of wool.  At the end of the all day session, we cut the wool into 10 pieces and traded with one another so everyone had a piece of everyone's dyed wool.  

It was a GREAT class and I learned so much.  Karen is an amazing teacher and a gracious hostess to boot!!  Here are some pictures of the dyeing in process, some finished samples of our wool.  

This was my piece Ü  I loved all of the movement and texture in this piece--

 These are the pieces I came home with--

Karen presoaks her wool in these extra large white detergent buckets.  They are the perfect container for yards of wool and today I went to Home Depot to find some big white buckets of my own so I can get started here at home Ü  They are 5 gallon buckets and I can't wait to get started.  The only thing holding me back now is...  I need some dye.  

Till next time-- Ciao baby!!!

Blessings,

Debra <3