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Join us this year ! Ten Minutes A Day! I am excited to encourage you to hook ten minutes a day all summer. When you join you commit to hook ten minutes a day every day you can for July and August! We'll be sending out prizes and encouragement because when you commit to the ten minutes a day challenge you commit to yourself and your creativity and I want to encourage that!

Register Here!

I am excited to encourage you to hook ten minutes a day all summer. When you join you commit to hook ten minutes a day every day you can for July and August! We'll be sending out prizes and encouragement because when you commit to the ten minutes a day challenge you commit to yourself and your creativity and I want to encourage that!

You can sign up here!

I want to show you some little tips here on the Pom members site. Right now I am crazy about flower pots. These are very simple designs I am doing right now but it is their simplicity that is difficult to carry off. For this orange pot I used sexy jersey and highlighted it with rust slub. I wanted a clean looking pot with not too much colour . The pot cannot compete with the flowers in these rugs. The pot has a very simple shape. Lean and long, and only two colours mixed together. I think it is the texture of the slub that works here and lends a bit extra to the pot with out overtaking the flowers.

Hey everyone, I have not had coffee or eaten my breakfast yet but I had an urge to visit with you here.  Right now I am so excited. It's thursday so we do our live which always gets me rolling. Last week I took a long walk on the marsh with friends and while there we began playing with our portrait mode on our iphones using the studio light mode and we got some fun results. I just wanted to show you what I discovered just by playing.

Right now I am in a very playful mode. Taking a few art dates and really enjoying spring. I ate my lunch the other day by the Bay of Fundy. Getting some long walks in. And hooking like a wild woman. I just completed a body of work for my show that starts next week at Fog Forest Art Gallery and I am so proud of it. 

So here's the iphone tip...choose portrait mode, then choose studio light on the bottom of your phone camera, and when the bar turns yellow..voila!

We are heading into spring. 

Rememember to put spring in your step.

To remain true to what is important to you

as the snow melts and the ground softens 

under your feet.

Walk with grace into this new season.

Unfurl.

Look up to the sky.

Watch the buds.

And be good to the people around you

as well as yourself.

Happy spring day.

I am finishing a whole series of rugs and for three days I have let myself feel this. I have let myself be in between. And it feels good, albeit a bit disjointed.

Instead of starting another rug immediately I worked on two writing projects that I am carrying out. I spent hours on them and I have a sense of accomplishment about that.You see when I put on a rug other things get neglected sometimes, especially writing.

But I think tomorrow is the day for beginning again. As it leaves me out of sorts to not have a rug on te go at home.

I feel at loose ends.

So I will start again. Tomorrow. A new design. 

Some new tiny landscapes perhaps.

I will dream them up tonight.

I love this statue outside the library on Gottigen Street in Halifax. Seeing it the other day made me think of the importance of public art. Everytime I see this piece of art I am reminded to take a moment and remember what it is to lift another person up.

Recently I felt myself being small over something. I talked it over with a friend and in the talking and the thinking came to the conclusion that I was feeling with a stingy heart. I was not in it with love but with fear, you know. Many of us feel this at times. At least I believe I am not alone. Walking by this statue the other day I felt what I needed to feel. I felt the importance of giving rather than taking. I felt the beauty of community. I felt an outpouring of care. That is the power of art.

We canm speak it in our rugs too. There are all kinds of public spaces in our communities that would benefit from our work. Over the years I have put my rugs in public spaces and I encourage you to do the same.

Public art not only brings

My friend Jeanne Oliver have created a series of six podcasts for you to listen to while you hook. We posted the first one on Tuesday and we will post every Tuesday for six weeks.  We are both really happy to share these honest conversations about what is important to us around creativty and art. I hope you'll enjoy them.

Here is the link: 

http:/https://hookingrugs.com/pages/podcasts

Enjoy.

I had such a nice weekend.

Yesterday morning and this morning I hooked on my rug. I just finished the sister rug of thispiee and it got me thinking of how much I like to make two rugs at once that are similar. When I paint I often have a few on the go . With rug hooking I often design one, finish it , then design another. Perhaps the Iris project got me thinking this. To draw a few that are similar at once and work on them letting one flow into the other. I may try this for a while and see how it goes.

Today we took a trip to a vegetable market and I got lots of groceries for the week. The picture here is one I had from a session I did with Megan Cormier of Gallery 8 Photography. It reminded me of my day so I shared it with you.

As the brightness of March starts to lead into the evening there is even more time to hook in the natural light.

I look forward to getting at my rug again in the morning.

I am getting ready for a new offering in the studio called the Inspiration Sessions. We sent out a little teaser video about it today on facebook on instagram. I wanted to share it with you here on DfS Social first!

The Inspiration Sessions is an inspirational monthly video series that will engage and inspire you as you work along with me in my studio. We’ll hook together and it will feel like a private one on one lesson in the comfort of your own home. It will encourage, stimulate and ignite your imagination. 

It will  be like a personal art date with me each month where I’ll share what is currently inspiring me and what I am learning. 

Each month I will hook along with you on one of the projects I am working on and share with you my process and inspiration, and focused attention on a special piece. I’ll offer you techniques, tips and ideas to strengthen and develop your rug hooking.

I’ll be sharing stories, philosophy and ideas about living a good life infused with art and creativit

We are finishing up our iris kits and hope to release the online course IOrises across the Bay a little early. Yay! Angela wote the last sentence today.

I am working steadily at home creating a Design School Level 2 Course. It is exciting to be creating a new course that is about creativity. I am also dreaming up a new course for next year. Teaching makes me hapy and inspires me. 

On my frame here I am working on another big rug. Not as big as Goldenrod but pretty big.

Gotta say I am so happy with all the blog posts here this week. seeing the progress on people's works. It is such as good space to share our rugs. Thank you so much . I am watchimng your work grow and develop.

Tonight I am making fish tacos. This is my little world of rug hooking.

What are you cooking for supper?

So it is finished. I finished it on Saturday during the big storm when Terry, Lily, our syudent volunteer  and I were here  in the studio. I had made lime pasta, a new recipe and a salad and we ventured thru the snow. I sat down andI dug in. You know what hooking this rug did to me? It made me want to make something else this big. So the last few nights I have been dreaming that up. What goes on the frame next? What is big enough to slow me down?

I loved making this goldenrod rug. Hopefully it will be bound and ready for our Thursday Live and we can hang it behind me in my studio part of the studio. Now its what's next. I think I will get a big piece of linen, lay it on the floor and see what emerges. I'm waiting! Yay.

We want to see your heart felt rugs! You may have one made already. If you want to keep up with our challemges and what we are doing here you can find out about it under te events tab!

We have grown. We now have over 1400 members. Yay! Thank you for joining me.

I am going to startnmy libe in a few minutes. I hope you'll join me at hookingrugs.com under lives.

I wourked from home three days this week so I never got much done on Goldenrod. That's all the news!

As I work on a new course on design I am thinking alot about this big rug that I have had made and how it relates to my other work that I am creating for the course. Preparing courses is an important part of my work overall. I don't want to just inspire people to create rugs. I want to inspire them to create rugs with their own voice. Rugs that tell their story and speak their truths. This is so important to me.

I think when we can find ourselves in a rug you know. That we can learn so much about ourselves just from making, from using our work to tell a story, or express an idea. It takes time and commitment but it is so worth it. You know I have a desire to put another ig rug on the frame right after I finish this one. I wonder will I still feel that way when this one is off the frame?

So on my notes for today I had said, Hook the sea. And I did. Most of my day actually.

My friend Denise came by with a loaf of bread and I had brought in some leek and potato soup and we made a little picnic in the studio on this winter day. It was quite cheerful to have a picnic, even if it was not outside under the sun. We had fun.

After that I sat with my rug for several hours. Tomorrow on the live I'll show you how much I have done. 

I was just talking to Cathy MacDonald , who manages this site and next wek we are going to make a little instructional video about how you can use this site to keep track of your rugs, create posts, and update your members page. So stay tuned. We are on the case.

Today in the studio Cathy was creating small patterns for our pattern basket. Joe was shipping Cheticamp frames and Patricia was making kits and overdying some boucle yarn. Angela is working on the wholesale brochure for our beginner kits. 

So today I hooked a lot, and hopefully tomorrow I wil

I made another turn in Goldenrod today after starting the sea. I had nothing in my stash left for the water so I made my wauy to the wools and added five new one. Lichen and Lace and Rasta were in the pile. I really wanted something think to add a bit of bounce to the piece. Everything so far was two ply almost. It needed a texture shift. I have never hooked a complete landcape this big before with out houses or a community. There is a tiny village in the back hills but this rug witll not have the structure of houses to rely upon. I am always excited to go to a new stage, to rol;l the frame. It tells me that progress is happening.  Right now I need a stretch so I will go out in the snow onto our street and walk around the block a few times just to refresh my limbs. The I think I will come back and hook for another bit while I listen to a story or a podcast. They keep me company, even if I am only half listening. Still I am there at the frame with a voice to soothe me.

Today I spent some time writing and hooking. This is my main job, my main activities at the studio. I gotta tell you this. While I was hooking I yelled. Ahhhh. Loud. And Angela and OPatricia came running. What happened? Well. You probably know what happened. It might have even happened to you.  I hooked the skin on my thumb, the thumb underneath the rug, and let me tell you it smarts. It is the tiniest of injuries but the most irritating. And for me it is like the old fingers on a chalkboard. It just sends a shiver right through me.

So now it is back to writing. As much as I like to hook vigorously....well you still gotta be careful not to hook your own thumb.