Biographical Rugs

Back in January, my class at Julie Smith's was challenged to complete a "ruglet" a month. Each ruglet should have a connection to the next, so I started thinking about ideas for a theme. I finally came up with an idea that had been in the back of mind for a while: a series of rugs depicting things from my life.

Awhile ago, I purchased Jill Berry's book, Personal Geographies: Explorations in Mixed Media.

This book really sparked my imagination for creating a "map" of your life. Although the book uses drawings/paintings to depict your map, I could see the possibilities for rug hooking. With all that in mind, here are the first two rugs in my bio series. The third rug is complete, but not bound yet. I will show that rug in a future post.

The first rug shows the street where I grew up, and the second the name of my town, well-known for its geysers and spring water. Although you can't tell from this rug, the rocks are done in a Waldeboro style, but not clipped.

What would your personal map rugs show?

Latest projects

I've been attempting for the last week to get some pieces finished and hung. I managed to finish my felted piece of birch trees and finally did something with the small rugs I hooked as a member of Lori LaBerge's plein air hooking group. I'll do a post about that group soon.

Here is the felted piece. The green/orange background was wet felted and after that the piece was needled felted and embroidered. Overall, I'm pleased with the results.

The next photo shows the plein air pieces attached to a thick strap-like material. The top is of flowers, followed by a path near our home, and the third was done on Plum Island off the coast of Massachusetts. All were hooked outside.

Hope your fiber projects are going well.

Design Notebook

I have a notebook where I draw rug ideas, thoughts on color, possible dye formulas, and on and on. Do you have one? The key to making this book useful is to remember to flip through the pages on occasion. Doing this usually triggers more ideas, but more importantly, gets me to put some of these thoughts into action.

Lately, I've been fascinated with architectural details. I am particularly enamored of Matthew Rice's books on English architecture.

Keep in mind that the drawings below are very rough sketches, but I can see how they could be really fun to hook.