Just Started

Indian embroidered rug. Photo from Tiggy Rawling's blog, I think.

I'm in-between projects right now, hence the lack of recent postings. I did start a biggish (36"x54") hooked rug, based on the image above. I've used this photo as the wallpaper on my computer for several months now so I think I can stand looking at the design for as long as it will take me to finish. It's an embroidered rug  from Tiggy Rawling's blog, I'd Rather Be in India. (Thanks to Mo Crow, for helping me find the original post.)

I thought I had done a fairly good job with the colours, but they look cooler in this photo. Then again, it's been so rainy lately I think moss would start growing on anything that was still for more than a minute, so it's no wonder the camera had trouble getting the right colour balance. My big issue with what I've got so far is the narrow bands between the wider panels. In the original they look to have meandering curlicues of chain stitch, which would be maddening to try to do with hooking. So I tried just hooking straight lines of colour, which is okay, but doesn't please me in the way it should.

However, I was looking at the current issue of Rug Hooking magazine, and saw a rug crocheted with wool strips onto a latchhook type backing material. Maybe I could crochet the strips through primitive burlap?

Nope!

But this failure gave me another idea. What if I laid down strips of thick blanket wool and chain stitched through it. My small sample is promising. I am a bit worried that the wool yarn I used to stitch with will wear out sooner than the hooked loops, but heck, it's not like it's going to get heavy use on the floor.

I am also working on the layout of my next Codex piece. It keeps changing so I'm holding off on pictures at this point. But it does have lots of fearsome sea creatures so should be great fun to stitch, once I nail down the design.