Dancing Horses

Here is a fun rug that anyone could make.  I love horses, have I mentioned that?  And since my store is The Rug Hooking Store at Black Horse Antiques, you can imagine that I hook lots of black horses in my rugs.  This rug is on my bedroom floor.  I made it to go with a certain bedspread, something you are never supposed to do, since your room decor can change, but I figured when I change the bedspread, I will hook a new rug for that spot.
This was very simple to design and could be drawn with anything, not just horses.  A lady who saw this rug was inspired to hook one with crows, but a dogs and cats rug or birds or stars or....well, you get the idea, it could be about anything.
I laid out my linen, drew the border in the dimension I wanted.  This a pretty large rug, but any size would work.  Then I took 5 simple horse shapes.  These are horse figures that I have used in different rugs and had the templates ready to reuse.  I save every design I draw or important figures from the designs and store them in manilla envelopes, marked with the design on the outside.  It is a simple filing system, but they are always handy if I need a good star, or flower or animal or.....yes, I see that you understand this as well.
I copied off the various horse shapes, got down on the floor and started arranging them in all directions.  I wanted them to be moving every which way, so there was no particular orientation for the rug.   When I got them in a position I liked, I used my trusty Sharpie to draw them in.  Then the fun began.  Again,  those backgrounds are so much fun to me.  I just drew in shapes with my marker, they are basically in the shape of triangles.  Long triangles, short ones, fat ones etc.  After I hooked all the black horses, with a plethora of different blacks, I simply outlined a triangle and continued to contour it with different colors.  My background was variations of 3 colors, black, gold and turquoise.  Remember, the designer's rule of thumb is to use 3's and 5's to keep the eye happy.  Well,  this simple rug of dancing horses, is certainly a happy rug.

Next time friends,
Janice