My eyes fell on this pincushion in my little hooking corner. It brought a smile.

 I stitched it last summer and adore the material and the shiny brown button. 

Do small things make you smile?

I needed levity just then as I'd been wrestling with a cutter head on my Fraser. Must have overtightened it. And I actually bent the plate trying to get the durn thing off. Haven't seen that before. Perhaps that's a signal that it's time for an upgrade. Ha ha!

Here is the rug I've resumed working on post Cmas projects:

It's Guardians of the Orchard by Black Sheep Wool. Rhonda Manley sold the business to Elinor Barrett but I see the website is Under Construction. Have a creative lovely weekend!

Friends and Snow Shoes

Spent some time today hooking with my friend C. Here is a photo of her rug. 

Don’t you love the swirly background and different leaves? They each have their own personality!

The outside border of leaves will have a creamy yellowish backing. 

Neither of us has colour theory schooling (ok I had it and forgot it all) but we know what we like and we back hook when things don't work. 

This will look so cute at her cottage near Mactaquac!

And we got more snow today, because--why not? After work my hubby

donned his snow shoes and made a path for Lucy to follow in the yard. 

Her short Scottie legs cannot handle deep snow. 

See how well Lucy supervises?

 Just like her mom! 

By the end of winter snow usually grazes the clothesline wire. 

That's when we dream of Mexico.

Have a wonder-filled day my friends!

Here is Santa and Rudolph. Done. 

 

Taking advice, I re-hooked the green in the tree at the right.

I'm one of those who says it's

done when the hooking is finished, but I always finish it promptly.

I will do this tomorrow while I visit a friend. 

My friend, C, and I have been hooking together for a couple of years.

 She never had a formal lesson and has done several pieces. 

Now she is on her Biggest Project Yet-- a large mat of Fall leaves.

 C collected leaves from her cottage and traced them so that the piece would mean more. Clever! And of course we drink tea and solve world problems when we meet. 

The problems are secondary to hooking.   

The other thing I'm up to today is painting the kitchen. 

It's been a dull light brown since we moved in and I found a nice cream

to brighten it up.

Painting has to be done in stages because our kitchen is always busy.

 And because the dog and cat get under my feet .

I bribed Lucy dog with a pig's ear. 

She trotted off to the living room with it and was occupied for some time before she threw it up on the rug.

Sweet Annie

 

I had this sitting in another corner of my Wool Room- Sweet Annie

I'd dried from my summer crop. I bought a bunch two Falls ago at

Sabbathday Lake Shaker Village*** and fell in love. 

Crumbling the dried flowers releases its very distinctive scent. I never tire of smelling it. Though it is said to treat various maladies

I had also heard it repels moths, but I've found little to substantiate that claim. 

Then again I have no moths in the Wool Room, so there.

It's an easy grower and makes for a tall flowery accent to any perennial

cottagey garden.  

My seeds came from The Incredible Seed Co. in 

Nova Scotia. 

Apparently they self seed after the first season so I am set!

Hmmmm.... we're in the middle of another Big Snow so it's no

surprise that my heart is turning toward the garden. 

 

*** Sabbathday Lake is the last remaining Shaker community in the world. There are only two Shakers left but they are supported by a huge number of volunteers. Their old buildings are exquisite.

True Confessions

Here's a photo of our Lily, hunkered down in a wool bin. And here is the photo of my wool room. It's like showing a stranger my underwear drawer so please be kind and appreciate my vulnerability. 

You can see the crates and plastic stacks in the corner so organizing was once a thought.

Built-in shelves for the materials were also on my "to do list" but way led on to way...

Ten years have passed since we moved in and now we are downsizing. I see no reason to organize when I'm just going to pack it into boxes to move. Do you? I can sort as I pack.

And in my defense, the Wool Room is on the third floor and we rarely venture up. 

When we moved here from North Carolina, a company did the packing. I had crammed all my wool into several closets and I had the movers box it all over two days while my hubby was at work. He had no idea of the proportions of my stash until we got here. By then he was too culture shocked to care. Now he is too diplomatic to mention The Wool Room on the Third Floor. 

He's a keeper, and as we said in NC, "bless his heart."

Looking for Colour in a White World

The title, arguably, sounds like the beginnings of a political assertion but I'm referring to the whiteness of Winter. Though New Brunswick plays host to a fierce Winter it is hardly just white. On my morning amble I made it my mission to look for flashes of colour. And I found them. From the obvious red of my arbor...

to the more hidden bush berries...

Looking harder, I snapped a photo of my Scottie, Lucy. She is often called "white;" yet she is far from it. Regard the sweet girl:

I see shades of khaki, oranges, even greens, blues and purples. Indeed, hookers who seek detail for a snowy scene (the fine shaders, perhaps not the primitive hookers) use a wide variety of colours, using pure white in minuscule amounts, if at all. Snow is blue, purple, pink, gray, tan, even black in places.

Though Winter's hues are not as obvious as Summer's, the better observer will note that they are there, splendid and waiting for the keen eye to behold.

Find colour today!

Still stuck on Christmas. A small tale behind this stocking: I picked up two metres of this material in Rottenburg, Germany in September. I fell for the overshot woven look in a dusty back room. The shopkeeper would buy out material from shoppes going out of business and offer bargains by the meter and classes to upcycle the material into cool clothes.  It pays to wander down a side alley be it walking or driving. 

Back in New Brunswick I had my rug hooking group give it a look over. They detected wool in it but also something synthetic which gives the material a slight stretch. What to do with it? Tablecloth, curtains... wait, I hated the small size of my Christmas sock. Santa always overfilled it and I'd wanted a new one. This I hand-stitched in no time, adding an all-wool cuff and a blanket stitch for a touch of fancy. And this year Santa had room to put a big bar of homemade lavender soap in the toe!

Now I'm off to a milestone birthday party for a brassy woman who has made a name for herself in the rug hooking world. Congrats you-know-who. I debated whether to tuck wine or wool into a gift bag. Wine won out by a narrow vote!