Rug Hooking with Janice Lee

Well, it's done, the tulip fraktur rug that I started in the Jan Goos Workshop. This is a design by Red Salt Box, based on an antique fraktur design. Frakturs are hand painted folk art, of Pennsylvania Dutch origin. They would commemorate a special event like a birth or wedding, by painting the information with these very stylized designs. Birds, tulips, hex signs and other traditional Pennsylvania Dutch art forms are typically used.

This was an exciting rug to color plan and proved to be a little challenging. Jan Goos picked the warm, rich colors, but we had to make changes and adaptations along the way. This rug proved to be a great discussion piece. Kathleen Salak, Lou Ann Ayres and Sandy Weller all made suggestions. I NEVER reverse hook and I rehooked the circular flowers I called the 'peppermints' at least 4 different ways. I finally decided on the brightest gold from the flower pot for the peppermints and the beauty line, to help draw the vibrant gold up and balance it thru out the rug. I added sparks (or kisses, as Jan calls them) to the tulip, to help give it a touch of pot color as well. For a spark, you can hand trim or take a thin remnant strip and hook just 2 or 3 or more loops to bring that color to an area that needs a little lift. That was one of many great tips Jan taught us in the class.

Those of you who come to the store will recognize the names of many of the colors used in the rug. The red is Mr. Lincoln and Pepperberry. The golds are Poughkeepse, Yarrow and Maple.

The peppermint is Maple and Down by the Sea blue. The blues are grease monkey, Down by the Sea and Jack Boy Blue. The background is at least 5 different pieces of Dark Brown Sugar.

Jan Goos loves all the brown sugar variations and you see them in many of her rugs.

This rug will hang on my kitchen wall. I can hardly wait to see it in it's spot! Thanks Jan Goos!

It was a great workshop and I learned a lot of interesting and challenging things as well.