When I first started rug hooking back in the '90s, I went back and forth between fine hooking and primitive hooking. At the time, I was fascinated with shading flowers, and managed to hook a few 3- and 4-cut rugs. In my quest to find the perfect shading technique (!), I was lucky enough to get a copy of Mildred Sprouts "Design-A-Patts" book. I believe it dates to 1954.

"Design-A-Patts" is a manual for shading both flowers and fruits. Each plant has a picture with shading instructions and some of the patterns even having suggested formulas you can try. Here is a sample of shading techniques for an apple, banana, and cherry. The detail may be a little tough to see, but I think you'll get the idea. The following photo is a closeup of calla lilies that I hooked using help from Mildred's book. Had a lot of fun hooking this rug.


This book is still available. Try googling Mildred Spouts. If you have photos of shaded rugs, I'd love to see them and will post them on this blog.

Cute Bunny Rug

I'm sharing this photo of a rug hooked by Marie Ciaffa. This rabbit pattern is simply wonderful! Marie used some of my wool -- Prairie Berry for the background and Dirty White grads for the bunny.

I'm not sure you're going to be able to tell, but the pattern was made into a pillow. Marie had the pillow professionally sewn and the piping is such a wonderful complement to the colors in the pattern.

Marie had three people ask her to hook this pattern for her, but she's on to other projects. Marie, thanks for sharing this photo.

LOTS OF WOOL!

I've been doing lots of dyeing and lots of listing on Ebay, Ecrater, and Etsy. (See the left hand side of this blog to find links to these sites.) I've had some fun doing some dip dyes. The first is a soft rose dip dye and is now listed on Ebay. The next is a dip dye I call Rustic. It reminds me of terra cotta tiles and is also listed on Ebay.

Another nice piece is an orange/yellow piece that reminds me of a soft sun. I call it African Sun. Would make wonderful fruit and flowers also. This piece was overdyed over Dorr's Sunflower Yellow wool. It's one of those pieces I'm having a hard time parting with. Unfortunately, I keep to much wool as it is!

This last dip dye is called Cashmere Rose. It is a very soft mix of pinks and plums. Just beautiful.