Some hook-in fun.....

I went to the Blue and Gray hook in today in Gettysburg. Peggy Hannum came today to give a talk about color. She did a wonderful job and showed us some of her most beautiful rugs. She is a fine cut hooker. And you will see what I mean by beautiful. She has been hooking for 30 years. She spoke of and showed her first rug she ever did. I can't believe I didn't get a shot of it. It was large rug with iris' on it. It is on her website. Just click on her name above, and you can find it there. Her teacher tried to recommend the small rose pattern (just a mat) that most beginners start with, but she really wanted to do a "rug". So her teacher worked with her and said ok. She told us not to be intimidated by color planning a rug. Or to think that we are inadequate. It really is "in" all of us. We just need to bring it out, and give it time. Eventually the rug will tell you if you need a little of this or less of that. We should always ask questions, and share our experiences. We learn from everyone. She even learns from her students. Rughookers are the most generous people. At these hook-ins, if you are ever struggling with something, it's the best place to be for a multitude of opinions and suggestions. Someone is always willing to help you out. That's what we are there for. To help each other and to learn from each other.

Peggy spoke a lot about swatches and how they help you find the color you are looking for. You can use books, or one example she gave was fabric. You can get fabric that is color planned for you already. You know you've seen the little dots on the selvedge of yardage in the fabric stores. Collecting pictures, you can make a great reference book for future projects. Here is one rug that she wanted to match her curtains that she made. Again, using swatches from TOD (triple over dye), she was able to come up with colors that matched her fabric. You can see the fabric at the top corner of the rug. One thing that I love to hear is that her rugs are on the floor and they are used. She walked on hers during her talks today. After all, they are "rugs" aren't they?? Some people will gasp (not rughookers) when you say you put them on the floor lol
She talked a lot about intensity of color too. Below I will show some rugs that have some real intensity. She achieved this by dyeing her colors over colored wool instead of white or natural. Dyeing a peach over a peach, or a green over a green etc, will give your color more intensity. It looks like you can just pick a piece of that fruit off the rug, doesn't it? Just gorgeous.
I sure hope I'm explaing all of this right. Sorry if I get anything backwards or twisted. So much was said.



Peggy spoke about the primary colors red, yellow and blue. And how colors work together. If you ever see some of the swatches that are out now from different people, their colors all go well together. Below are some rugs that she also overdyed the same color over different colored wools. For example, taking a peach, red, and blue, and dyeing them all the same green. They will all go together. The scroll in the round rug was all done that way. Stunning, isn't it??

Light and dark backgrounds were also talked about. In her pillow, the tiny flowers are almost a white, and yet she took another color and just lightly outlined it so it was enough contrast to the background. Guess it's kind of hard to see with the angle of the picture. I had to take them sitting down.
She talked about so much, that I'm sure I'm missing a LOT. I wasn't taking notes. I wanted to post this now, because if I didn't I would forget everything. (I'm sure Marion appreciates me doing it now anyway lol). Some of the pictures didn't come out, sorry. The color wheel was also talked about, and Peggy for as good as she is with her color, she doesn't use it that much. They can be a little hard to use. But it is a good tool for knowing complimentary colors and things like that. But to plan a rug with one, I know I wouldn't be able to do it. Ivi also mentioned something that was interesting to me. She said that you can take a colored piece of wool and hold it up to the color wheel, and see what color range it falls in to. For example, you have a piece of greenish yellow. It may just fall into the category of yellow and not green, even though it looks like a green to you. Hope that makes sense to you. I will definitely look at the color wheel a little more with some of my wools.
If nothing else, I've given you a lot of eye candy to drool over today lol. There was a lot of oohing and aaahing over her rugs. I will show a few more before I show you one of her students rugs. The butterfly rug was done for her daughter using transitional dyeing. I hope I didn't get that confused with transcolor dyeing lol. Again, a LOT was talked about.

And here is one of her students rugs. She chose some wool that was wonderful to see how they used it. It's a primitive rug, but with lots of color!! There were some spot dyes, some marbelized pieces, and some dip dyes. A great job!

Oops, and I can't forget the picture I took of Doris' (so happy you started your blog!!!) rug that I took in the beginning of the day. Doris has been a rug hooker for many years and does fine cut as well. This one, she took to the 3 day class with Cynthia Norwood that I was at. It is done in an 8 cut!! She's just about done!! I haven't touched my class rug in weeks lol. I think she did a wonderful job with it, and she was laughing today at how fast it goes with a larger cut lol. I have this pattern sitting here in the room with me. I had picked it up at the Brandywine hook in back in October. My mil gave me money to get myself a Christmas present with. So I picked up that one. I had always admired it. Can't wait to start it NEXT year...... I want to put it over my sofa in my family room. Curious to see what colors I choose. After Peggy had given her talk, we exchanged our wool by standing in a circle and Louise read the story about the Wright family. As she read it, every time we heard the word Wright, we passed our packages to the right, and when we heard the word left, we passed them to the left. We did relatively well, and only screwed up a couple times lol. When the story is over, whatever package you had in your hands is yours! I got a wonderful piece of dark herringbone from Marion (Thank you!!). I am going to check it out for the background in my class rug. Love to use other people's wool in my rugs. Something to always think about when you look at it. We also had some great desserts to sink our teeth into. From cupcakes (thank you Joan, they were delicious), to brownies, and peppermint bark and cookies. I was a good girl though, and made sure I ate my lunch first, THEN treated myself to a few (or more) pieces of treats lol!

Hoping everyone is off to a good start of their week!