Let's talk about happy times

Back before I was a weaver, I was a hooker.
A rug hooker.
You know what I meant.
I was INTO it.
Hard to believe, right?
I was so into it, that I made a LOT of rugs.
Dyed my own wool, cut my own strips, drew my own patterns, for the most part.

 This is one of my favorites. I made it for my youngest, Morgan.  Every picture means something to her.  And there's my hand, hooking, on the right.

When she was about 5, she had an outfit, with the heels and all, see it in purple?
And she loved to lie on the deck in the sun.
And there she is with her sisters in front of Stonehenge.

This one was from a picture I saw in a magazine.  With some ad libs.  This picture was taken when the rug was on display at the Round Barn in Vermont.  I was a member of the guild over there at the time.
Seems like another lifetime.

I am only showing you pictures of the ones I liked.  There were more.  I was a busy girl.
All this and two jobs.
I look back and call it insanity.


 For awhile, I was also into making "dummy boards".
This is a Santa dummy board I made, and sold.

This is one of the first ones I ever made, and I did it because it matched the wallpaper boarder I had up in my living room.....if you look closely, you can see Miss Liberty's skirt waltzing around the room.

My patriotic period, I guess.

This was my first "real" big project.   I sold it to the lady on the right, Patti Yoder.  She died several years ago, but in her lifetime, she was a rug hooker extraordinaire, and several of her rugs are featured in the Rug Hooking yearly books.
The lady behind the rug was Jean Evans, the sweetest lady and someone who encouraged my rug hooking talents in her little studio.
That's me, with longer hair, and a butt ugly sweater that I wore ALL the time.  I must have liked it.

 

 Here's a close up, but don't look too close.  It was taken in two shots, cut and taped together.........give me a break though, it was taken with FILM.
You remember that, right?

This next one was copied from a greeting card, that I still have by the way.  I loved it, so I hooked a rug just like it.
My favorite part is the shadow of the person holding the kite.

This rug, the pineapple rug, was made from an age old pattern.
The rug resides under my coffee table, still.
It has been through several dogs, and though it is a bit faded, it has held up incredibly well.

The old pot belly stove was in my barn at my house in the country.

I drew the sunflower, and I call this my Van Gogh period, tongue in cheek.

I had an old book of antiques, and in it there was this picture of an old weather vane.  I was quite taken with it, so I dyed some wool, and here it is.
It is the one rug I regretted selling when it was gone.

I was such an avid hooker.........ooh, that sounds funny, doesn't it?   that I ended up with
serious carpal tunnel problems both wrists.
So I had surgery on them both, and reconsidered my obsession with it.
It wasn't long after that when I learned to weave, and you know how THAT turned out.
Right?

I love that saying that I saw on another blog, and put on my sidebar. 


"You will never untangle the circumstances that brought you to this moment."

The only thing you can do, is occasionally drag out the photos, and ponder it all.
But today, this day, is all we really have. 
Everything in this post, is a part of who I am today, but none of it belongs to me anymore.
It only lives on in photographs.

Last night, I dreamt that I went to see a loom.  It was a marvelous loom, and really large.  I sat down to try it out, and was amazed to find that every time I stepped on a treadle, and threw the shuttle, I created this lovely music.  At first, I wasn't sure where it came from, but when I stopped weaving, the music stopped, and when I started up again, the music continued and got louder and more beautiful.

I guess that says it all, pretty much, don't you?