Happy New Year

 I waited til after midnight to post this, so it would be officially 2014. Happy New Year to you all.  Here is hoping you all have a healthy and prosperous new year.

I thought I would start the new year out with some pictures of a great rug done by Larry Walton.  Larry is the dad of Cammie Bruce.  Cammie taught him well, he is a very fine rug hooker.

This is a rug Larry started in an heirloom rug class I taught last fall.  I was telling the class about some of the antique rugs we saw at Sauder Village last August.  I remarked how some of the reds and blues were amazingly vivid on 100-150 year old rugs.

Larry decided he would like to use those kinds of blues for the background of his rug.  We decided on very neutral colors for the animals, all creams, tans and browns.  Then the background became the fun!  We selected 5 or so different blues and Larry hooked them in this 'banded sky' technique.
That is one of the 15 different techniques the class learns to make a rug look like an antique or vintage style rug.

As you can see in the bottom photo, the blues are clear and bright and interesting, but still have the look of an old rug.  Larry did a great job on this one.  I can't think of a better way to start out the new year than to show his wonderful project!

Happy New Year to All,

Janice