Friday...Part Two?

This week has been all messed up for me. My husband was on vacation Monday and Tuesday. The Fourth was on Wednesday, which felt like Saturday, but then my husband went back to work on Thursday which felt like Monday and now today, Friday feels like well, not Friday, Tuesday???

I thought I would have some finished rugs to show you this week. I am going to go ahead and show you what I have. We are going into 100+ temps for the next week so I hope to be able to get some hooking done as I won't be outside as much.

My stacks of rugs are growing and I need to just pony up and get it done. I have been weeding so much that when I hook for long periods of time I can't do simple things like open doors or carry things. I have tried to rest my hand so that I can start hooking again.

Okay here are some of my projects, now that it is past Fourth of July, I can hook pumpkins again. :)

I love this little rug, but I stopped as I felt I didn't have enough skill to hook it the way it should be hooked. I had never used a size three piece of wool when I started hooking so I put this aside until I had hooked more rugs and I needed to teach myself to dye wool. I have done those things now, so I am ready to finish this. This pattern came from a very old issue of Rug Hooking magazine.

I was dreaming of fall things the other day and I thought to myself, I wonder if I could free hand some pumpkins, stars and a crow. I did so even though it looks a bit funky, I thought it looks okay so I will be working on this one too. Now that I know how to get orange for pumpkins out of  Kool aid.

My Whale-is-huge!! When I first started to look into rug hooking it was in the 1990s but my children were small and I had so much going on even though I dreamed of being a rug hooker life wasn't set up for me to do that. In 2006 I bought a magazine called Country Home and in it they had pictures of  Polly Minick's house and her rugs. I knew then I wanted to hook a whale rug. When they published the book American Summer and the pattern of the whale was in there I knew of course I would be hooking that.  Of course though, in 2006, my Dad had just died, and my two oldest children were getting married and I was planning weddings. No time for rugs.

By 2008 my husband had left his position and started on a new path and I was trying to keep life together the best way I knew how, and having grand children  and watching as my Mom's life drew to a close, I still had no time for rugs.

In 2009 a lovely lady gave me everything I would need to get started in rug hooking. She was making quilts and sent me a box filled with everything I had dreamed about through the years. Jacque is such a giver.

So I have read everything I could, I have yet to see anyone besides myself hook a rug. I have watched videos on You Tube on how to hook. I stare at blogs with rugs on them while I continue to teach myself by what I read.

I do love rug hooking because every time I pick up a hook I am reminded of how long it took to get here and how thankful I am that even though sometimes you have to wait, the more special things become when you are given the chance to live that dream.

The rug I am currently working on I love. I showed my daughter a pot holder I had and she drew this pattern out on the backing for me. It almost feels like a new baby to me as it is something that I have stared at and now to see it becoming a rug is wonderful.

I went to the library once and there was a lady who had passed away and left the library more books than you can imagine. The librarian took me back and let me browse the books. Stacks and stacks on everything you could possibly ever dream of doing. That day I picked up books on raising chickens, growing gardens,
hooking rugs. I came home and started reading and always in the back of my mind was, " I am tired of reading about life, I want to start living it." Life until that point in time had been too filled with grief and I was numb from life.
I started blogging at this time too, and bit by bit I have come back to life. I am thankful for all of it, because as the saying goes," without rain there is no rainbow."   
This will be my fourth year blogging soon, I don't think I would be so happy as I am now, because I have had someone to share it with, so thank you for reading and allowing me to learn to walk again, down this path we call life.
Have a wonderful weekend,
~Kim~