Ahhhh, hooking

I got off work today and was greeted with cold, rainy weather……NOT what you generally want to see to start your weekend……however, when you are a hooker it gives you a good excuse to just hook the night away!
So lucky that Kenny is a great cook…..he made some divine pizzas…..
2 buffalo chili pizzas on cornmeal crust….his specialty that I love!


A vegetarian pizza,

a cheese pizza, and a pepperoni deluxe…..YUM!

After supper I sat at the dining room table and started hooking….started with coffee (with a little Bailey’s) and ended with wine and a pile of wool scraps and odds and ends…..and the iPhone so I could text and hook and keep up with e-mail…..YIKES! That iPhone is going to be the downfall of me!
Here are a few pics of my progress…..in the big picture it doesn’t look like I accomplished much….

Does this close-up look any more impressive?

I must say I’m enjoying this rug….using up lots of my gray and brown stash for the tree rings……love seeing those wool piles getting smaller and smaller! Plus, I enjoy moving around the rug….trying to spread out my colors so that when I start to run out of something, hopefully it won’t be apparent as to WHERE I ran out!
As promised….gratuitous pics of my darling Cleopatra…..what a sweet girl!

Things I’m lovin’ on right now…..

This tulip painting from Liza Herst…..love the innocent pastels against the moody background.

 

This chair from Restoration Hardware.

This Christian Dior wedding dress…..love the soft wispy tulle against the origami looking satin…..edgy and pretty all at the same time!

Rain at night…when my dogs have had their meds and are sleeping like angels…..which allows me to sleep as well!

Working through the list

Sunday I worked on another one of my “tolerances”…..those things that are driving you crazy, but you just seem to tolerate.  Our front storm door has paint chipped off the bottom of it, so Sunday I scraped off the chippy paint and then gave it a fresh coat.  Here is the “in progress” picture.  I read quite a bit about Feng Shui and the entrance to your home should be cared for and welcoming….inviting good things into your life.  I’m all about THAT!

Once the paint is dry, I’ll take a “finished” picture.  I know, it’s not all that exciting, but it’s exciting to me to mark it off my list!  Next is shopping for a new front door and repainting the porch….it’s become chippy too! (if you’ve followed me on my blog for any length of time, you know I love to paint)

I know this doesn’t look like much, but I did get more hooked on my “Redbud Runner” at the hook-in…..I worked on hooking pods…I like that the rug is large and I’m liking meandering from place to place on the rug…..I’m doing this in case I run out of colors, I can work in different colors in different spots and you won’t be able to tell where I ran out. I’m wiley like that!

We have a forest pansy redbud in our side yard and I’ve never seen the pods on it (those are redbud pods in my rug design…not pea pods)……I did see pods on a redbud today and they are not green….they are brown….mine are staying green….. “artistic license”…is what I’m calling it!

I tried to get good pictures of our redbud flowers today, but I just can’t seem to capture the color quite right…..I’ll try again tomorrow…..this was taken with my iPhone….maybe I’ll try with my camera next time……

A lot of the petals have found their way to the ground….

I love the petals against the mossy green…..this is kind of the color palette of my rug…..

grays, browns, purples, greens……

The hostas are up and the ajuga is blooming…..

It’s so nice to walk outside in your bare feet…..I’m generally a “socks” kind of person, but the winter has seemed long this year….bare feet in the grass feels so good.

More pics of Lonnie….I swear, this dog will let you do anything to him! He is not thrilled….I’m trying to take sheets and quilts off the bed for laundry day…this upsets him, because he likes to lie on the bed and look at the windows for squirrels…..he was NOT budging!

I promise to have pics of Cleopatra in my next post.

A beautiful hooking day!

Yesterday I attended the “Boathouse Hook-In”…..it was a beautiful, balmy day…I think the temp got up to 87 degrees….the redbuds were in bloom, herons were fishing in the waters, dogs were retrieving balls from the lake and 50 some odd hookers got together to hook, shop, eat and enjoy each other’s company.

Here are some of the rugs that were in the rug show, some works in progress and a little bit of quilting.  I wish I would have taken more pictures, but I was really into working on the new “Redbud Runner”.

 

This is a rug that my GF, Kelly, just HAD to have a picture of….she loved the soft, antique color combination…..really beautiful and in progress.

…..here is a close-up….

 

This is a rug that Marsha is working on the binding……have we got talent here in the Ozarks or what?!

A few close-ups….

 

Betty was working on quilting these wool pieces onto batting with decorative stitches, and then she is going to applique or embroider things in the middle of each square….Betty does BEAUTIFUL handwork!  Every time I see something she is working on, it makes me want to try it too…..or at least THINK of trying it!!

It was so good to see so many hookers that I don’t get a chance to see that often anymore….and the food….TO DIE FOR! Hookers can cook, I’m telling you!  As for me, I took the easy route this year and took in some soft peppered brie, Provencal salami, olive dip, and sliced French baguette.  This is what we’ve been having for supper several nights this week….since it’s warmed up, we’ve been outside longer and haven’t been cooking nearly as much.

Now for the rug show…..if you want “bigger” views of the rugs, you should be able to click on them.  If you want info on where the pattern is from, just e-mail me, and I’ll try to find out for you.

 

 

Inside the boathouse…..

 

Beautiful wools!

 

Gratuitous dog picture…..went to sleep last night dreaming of hooking……

Meet me in St. Louis

Traffic was crazy the entire drive to St. Louis, but we made it, shopped and ate.... Had some fabulous Korean BBQ tacos at California Pizza Kitchen.


Kenny is headed to the airport to fly out to Detroit to pick up a right hand drive jeep to deliver the mail with. I'm just hanging out waiting to visit Anthropologie....hope they are having some sort of sale !


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:Westport Plaza,Maryland Heights,United States

Get your own

I did get my two junk drawers cleaned out, lined them with some pretty red Ralph Lauren wallpaper and then sat down to look at Karen Kahle’s new catalog.

Superb!

But the best part is, you can get your own. Just cut and paste this link into your browser and you can download it to your desktop OR you can print it out for yourself. You might even just be able to click on the link and it might even do it for you….not sure, give it a try.

http://www.primitivespiritrugs.com/PRIMITIVE_SPIRIT_2011_CATALOG.pdf

Karen also has an etsy shop where she sells some of her rug hooking supplies as well as some of her finished products…..yes, this is a plug for her….anyone who dares to share like this deserves a little plug! Click on the picture below to go to her etsy store.

See all those little houses on her banner? Well, we’ve (Kenny and I) got something in the works here on Valleyroad……

…..all I can say is “Expect Good Things”…..borrowed that saying from Brenda Beerhorst at Kinship in Color and Wool.  She has a delightful blog and a fabulously creative family. Please visit her blog by clicking on her banner below.

Getting ready to head to St. Louis, so I’ll have something FRESH to blog about when I get back, or I may even blog from the road….I have a little blogging app for my iPhone, the pictures post fairly small, but hey, it’s a way to keep in touch with all of you.

BEWARE

If you got some weird e-mail from me this morning, don’t open any links. I was reading peacefully in bed this morning and my iPhone just started going crazy….bleep, bleep, bleep, bleep.

I picked it up to see what was going on and I kept getting all of these bounced e-mails from people I haven’t e-mailed in forever, so I went to my regular computer and see that “I” have sent out all kinds of e-mails about Levitra, sex, what have you.

I’m currently running a virus scan, and have tried to e-mail the people that I can tell that these went out to.

NOT a good way to start the day!

Why is it…..

…..when you have LOTS to do…..

THESE show up in your mailbox?

So, I’ve decided to play a game with myself…….once junk drawers are cleaned out….I’ll sit down and enjoy one of these as my reward!