Hook In Events

I know I have mentioned the Omaha Hook-In coming up this Friday Oct 3.  But have I mentioned all the preparations going on here at the store for our Hook-In Weekend.   As most of you know, I know longer take wool to events.  My motto is "Have Wool, Won't Travel".  It is not that I don't love seeing all my rug hooking friends and customers.  Oh, no…..I love seeing them all.  It is just that it has gotten to be too big a chore to load up the wool, haul to the event, sell all day, load up, return home and unload and put away.

So……I am thrilled that you may be going to the Omaha Hook-In, Oct 3 from 9-4 at St. Robert Bellarmine Church, 120 and Pacific, Omaha Nebraska.  But then, when those activities are over, come visit me at the store for more fun events.  We will hook until 10pm on Friday night.  Carl will bring us pizza for dinner and we will hook until we drop.  There will be door prizes, sign up for a $100 drawing, color planning, fun and friends.  Then Saturday morning we will have the Jan Goos
Chalkware Santa class form 9-3, more open hooking, door prizes, color planning, drawings etc.  We will also have Cameron Mayville come speak to us about cleaning hooked rugs.  It should be a fun and fascinating day.  Oh, yes, Carl promises to bring us many delicious items thru out the day.

My point to this whole story is…..I have been dyeing wool like a crazy person.  I will take pictures of the wool groupings to show in my blog….tomorrow.  I also got in about 60 patterns from Kathy Morton and a ton from The Sampling.  As always there are over 750 patterns here in the store
(who am I kidding, there are over 1000).  Come visit this weekend, all patterns are $5 OFF.

Janice

Chalkware Santa

The Omaha Hook-IN is coming October 3 and our special Hook-IN weekend will come right along with it on October 3 and 4.

Saturday the 4th of October, Jan Goos will be giving a special class here at the store.  This is her original Chalkware Santa design and she has hooked it up in 5 different color schemes for you to choose from.

The Santa on the bottom is one that I hooked on Sunday, just so I would know how much wool to pull for the Santa kits.  It turns out, I like the white Santa very much, so you can also order the white Santa kit, if you are signed up for our Oct 4 Chalkware Santa class.

So…here are your choices (top left) green Santa with brown background, (top right) blue and red Santa.  In the middle, left, Red Santa, center, Blue Santa, right Gold Santa

On the bottom, white Santa with chimney sweep background.

If you are signed up for the class, it is time to send your $50 plus 2.75 tax to pay for your kit.  I am paying Jan to teach the class, to thank all my wonderful customers for their business thru out the year.

Join us Oct 3 and 4.  Even if you are not in the Santa class, there will be open hooking, door prizes, a drawing for a $100 gift certificate, snacks, tips and all the color planning help you might need.  It will be a 2 day rug hooking extravaganza.

At 3pm on Saturday we have a special guest Cameron Mayville, who is coming to talk about rug cleaning.  That should be illuminating for all of us.

Mark your calendars and if you are signed up to do the Santa class, make sure you get me your color choice.

Can't wait to see you all on Oct 3 and 4.

Janice

POPPIES

Pris Buttler was here last weekend for our annual
MASTERS CLASS.  A few years ago, we studied the work of Gustav Klimt.  Those rugs were seen in Rug Hooking Magazine in an article in 2010.

Last year we were inspired by the work of Jan Theodore Toorop.  Those are our 'lady' rugs or "Vestal Virgins" as they are officially called.  Those rugs will be in Rug Hooking Magazine next month, in an article I wrote about that class.

This year Pris chose the work of Georgia O'Keefe for our master class.  16 students and Pris Buttler came to the store last Friday, Saturday and Sunday to learn to do this torn strip beauty. I let each student pick their poppy color, then per Pris' instructions, I dyed 6 shades of each color.

The rug on top is Pris' beautiful poppy rug,  the one below is mine.  I finished it on Monday.  Those torn strips let you fly!  And when you are done tearing and hooking those wide monsters, hooking the background in an 8.5 was like butter.

This was a terrific class.  I learned lots about the shading and of course, the higgledy piggledy flowers and leaves were there own sort of challenging.  Each rug is different and beautiful and I can't wait to show you some more as they are finished up.

Next year, Pris came up with a spectacular idea for our MASTER CLASS, it is a bit of a surprise/secret, so I won't talk about it yet. If you are interested in signing up for this wonderful opportunity with a master teacher/artist, Pris Buttler, contact me.  We have a couple of spots open for the class which we will be held September  18,19,20, 2015.

Next time….
Janice

Poodles and Poppies

So greatly remiss, am I, in my blogging that I never talked about the Diane Stoffel class and we moved right on to Pris Buttler this weekend.  I will try to catch up.

As usual, Diane Stoffel was her creative self at our three day class in July.  I wanted to hook Blue, so she suggested we make it a little more interesting by not using just Poodle colors.

She went to the bits and pieces bins and gathered up a small arm load of wool pieces.  She put them on the table in front of me and said "Divide those into groups of LIGHT, BRIGHT, DARK, and DULL.  I'll be back."

That went fairly well, but it certainly was a different way of looking at things.  Not blues, blacks, reds, etc……no…..LIGHT BRIGHT DARK DULL.  It became my mantra.

The darks, which were greys, blacks, purples, blues, reds, became the primary dog color.  The little spits of lights were placed inside the the poodle curls to give them movement.  The dulls, make things recede, I learned, and were used beneath the eyes and anywhere you wanted to hollow out the shape.   It was fascinating.  Absolutely fascinating.

The brights were used sparingly, but those chartreuse and neon colors gave his eyes a glow and also gave him tiny little whiskers.  There were bits of bright in his nose too, to give it that wet dog nose look.

If you look close, Blue is smiling, which is a normal Blue look.  He is 9 months old now and thinks everything is smile worthy.  He is in his teen months and is a bouncy little (huge) fellow.  He stands 29in at the shoulder and is a healthy 68 lbs.  He dad is about 30 in and 90 lbs, so our little man may still grow a bit more.  We had to take him off his puppy food, he was growing so fast that he was suffering from pan osteitis, inflammation in the bones from growing so quickly.

He remains the absolutely best dog!!!!  We start a tricks class tomorrow night, so I will update you on that.

Oh, before I finish today, I should mention the upcoming activities here at the store and our local rug hooking world.  The Omaha Hook-In will be October 3rd at St Robert Bellarmine Church, 120th and Pacific  from 9-4.  We encourage all to attend, it should be a great day with vendors, great rugs to see and fun to be had.  Right after the hook in, plan to wander out to Valley to attend our post hook-in activities.  We will hook Friday from 4-10, have food and snacks, door prizes etc.  Then Saturday we will have OPEN HOOKING from 9-6, more food, door prizes, a drawing for a $100 gift certificate and our Jan Goos Chalkware Santa class.

Jan has hooked up three different Santas in RED, BLUE and GOLD.  You get to pick your color, I will work up your kit for $50 for the pattern and wool and I will pay Jan to teach the class.  We are taking 25 for the class and have a full list now, but if you are interested you can call or write to get on the waiting list.  I am sure a few will have a plan change between now and then.

You can go to my website and visit OCT 3&4 to get a full listing of the days activities.  As always, I will be able to help with color planning and problem solving, so bring any rug that needs help!

Hope to see you then….
Janice