Hooking Faces

I have not been blogging lately, but I certainly have been doing a lot of hooking.  These two rugs are from 2 classes we had here at the store.  Please excuse the slight distortion, I photoed them on the floor and it always monkey's with the top of the rug.

The little dancing girl is my daughter Leah, age 5 at the time.  I tackled this project in Pat Shafer's face class in January.  Leah loved wearing make up for recital, so I wanted to emphasize the blush and mascara on this little doll.  The face was a breeze with Pat's excellent tutelage.  The tough part was the ruffles.  Who knew.  I particularly enjoyed the tile floor and striped wallpaper.  I drew in lots of straight lines before hooking, so I could keep my stripes straight.

The picture above shows my son Will, at about age 5 with his little red rope.  He got that rope at age 2 and it was rarely out of his hands for the next many years.  He was dangerous, for sure.  If you moved, he roped you.  Even if you didn't move, he roped you.  I got used to having skinned shins and bruises on my legs.  Of course I threatened him within an inch of his life, to get him to stop, but after a brief reprieve, he was always back at it again.  He roped the dogs, the cats, his sister, dad and the various customers at his dad's training stable.  One of the customers, Sandy Weller is the person who took this picture.  Sandy is also the one who talked me into taking my first rug hooking lesson with her in 2001.  I didn't want to learn to rug hook at the time, but am certainly glad I went along for the lesson.  I loved it with my very first loop.

The little roper rug I tackled in the Diane Stoffel class we had here last weekend.  I blew up the photo, and transferred it onto the linen with red dot.  Will's face was fun to do, because not only did we have to get the shading right, we had to make it look dirty as well.  Diane is the master and she lead me thru the process without too much whining on my part.  In the background of the picture, you see Will's dad and another roper, heading and heeling a steer.  These were little tiny figures, but with the 3 cut, it was fun to do.  Diane helped me with the sky process before she left and I tackled the dirt by myself. She pulled the colors during class and we decided to make the dirt in short strips.  No hooked line is more than 4 or 5 inches.  It really help give the variegated look.   Dirt should be easy to do, but as I found in last year's cowboy rug "The End of the Day"  dirt can present it's own hooking dilemma's.  

The little roper's face is a 3 cut, the rest of the rug is 4 and 5 cuts.  Little Leah's face is 3 cut and the rest is 5,6 and 8 cuts.  I have to admit after all the wide cut rugs I have made, I am enjoying these narrower cuts too.

I have more rugs and more pics, but I better wait till tomorrow.
Bye for now.

Janice