Very pleased with it so far. Now onto the binding and turning it into a pillow.
In the meantime, I have to have something on my frame. For a long time, I've been wanting to do a rug with my husband's family store as its theme. Phillips Cigar Store, later a newsroom, and behind the scenes a horseroom, was opened in the late 1890s. It survived into the 1960s, and is now, as they say, the stuff of legends!
We have a fair amount of memorabilia from the shop including part of an old sign that said "Cigars." The sign hung on the outside of the Broadway building that housed the shop. It now hangs above our fireplace in our den.
To the right of the sign (looking at it) are some of the original cigar boxes that were used in the store.
I looked at some images of advertising signs from that era online, and had kept a photo of an old cigar sign in the shape of cigar that also helped with inspiration. Here is what I came up with (drawn in Adobe Illustrator to size). The colors are just a rough approximation.
This afternoon, I traced the pattern onto linen. I used a printout of the illustrator file using outlines only. I spent the good part of last evening choosing wool, and with the exception of the gold, I think I'm good to go.
I do love starting a new rug, although I'm bit leery about all the lettering. My plan is to work in mostly 8-cuts, and smaller where necessary. I've done rugs with letters in them, but never this many. The lower case letters could be a challenge. If you have worked with lettering on rugs and have any hints to offer, I'd love to hear them.
3 comments:
I adore your paisley rug - it's going to make a great pillow! And your new rug design is so fun! Didn't see the green wool that you'll use for the background in your photo - - - I haven't hooked many rugs with letters, but I've heard you should hook it in junk wool- then hook around it - then pull the junk wool out and rehook it with the good wool. Sounds like a lot of work on a rug with this many letters, but who knows?
I loved the colors you chose for this right from the start! It looks great.
Please don't think I'm stupid, but what is a horseroom?
Thanks, Gayle for your kind comments about the paisley pillow. I really enjoyed it!
The green in the cigar store rug is actually more of a brownish green. I couldn't get the color to come out in Illustrator the way I wanted, so I just the green that's shown.
That's a great idea for working with the lettering. I may have to do that with the smaller letters.
A horse room was usually the back room of store where bets on horse racing tracks could be placed with the public none the wiser. The oldest thoroughbred race track in the country is located in Saratoga Springs, and in the first half of the 20th century lots of newsrooms had back rooms where bets could be placed. Definitely a thing of the past.
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