Finshed the Rug

 I finished hooking my rug yesterday. It has been a good month for work. We finished painting our last bedroom on Friday. We painted four bedrooms. I have de-cluttered and cleaned and on May 10th we will get new carpet in those bedrooms and new baseboards. Our bedroom was so big and it was by far the hardest. It had been brown, so covering that was huge. The only thing left will be the master bathroom. It can wait. Yesterday I was so tired, but I had set my mind to be finished hooking the rug by July. My hands were sore from painting but not sore enough to hook. I sat down and decided I wasn't going to stop. It took me about three hours and then I thought, I am going to steam it. So I did.

Here it is. 

 

I don't know when I have hooked a rug so big so fast. I think it helps when you like what you are hooking, at least it is for me. I have done such smaller rugs that took me years, because I either didn't like the colors or I end up just hating the pattern. Or, I prefer hooking with wide strips, but the pattern has too many small fiddly shapes I have to stop can cut smaller strips by hand. 

 

Here is the original picture. As I look at the picture, it, it might have been nice to do it in Sepia colors. I didn't think of that until now looking at this. I really did enjoy it. Now to get it bound and the ship-lap above my fireplace painted so I can hang it.  

 

I am not going to even start another project until I get this bound. I am going to be doing some furniture painting projects next week, my bedroom set was my parents. They were so proud of it in 1960. It really needs some updating and I want to do it. We were moving the head and foot board into the spare bedroom before we  could paint and I told Ron, " I have been moving that bedroom set since I was seven years old." It was such a weird thought, my Mom loved rearranging furniture. She changed rooms in our house like people change clothes. My Dad remarked once," its a good thing I am not blind because I would be falling over funiture every time I get home." When I got about seven she thought I was big enough to help her move that bed. Its a king size and it was and is solid maple. Its heavy. When we got married, that bedroom set was in the guest bedroom in my Dad's house and I asked if I could have it. He gave it to me so its been mine for 45 years. Painting it seems like sacrilege but I am going to do it anyway. 

 

 

  

 

Here is something I read in a book while I was hooking. The book is called The Land Breakers by John Ehle. 

 

"He fastened the harness, which he had cut from the bearskin, which he, Verlin and Fate had tanned. He flicked a switch and the old horse moved, and he and Verlin and Fate lifted the plow and carried it up the hill to the field. "Whoa, here," he said, the horse stopped.

Lorry came to the door of the cabin and watched then. "How many rows you planning on making?" she asked.

"As many and we can fit in," he said, checking the harness. He and Verlin set the plow in place. He clicked his tongue at the horse, took the plow handles firmly in hand, and put his weight on the plow handles and weighted the blade, and the plow moved, the earth turned, the dark earth turned and the smell of the earth came into the air and the row opened to him and yielded to him and was ready. 

 

There is nothing to me as great as working with the land to plant and get ready and work with my husband. Its nice living here, but life was really so nice when we were out here playing in the dirt, dreaming dreams and planning. 

Having a tractor was really nice too. I hope your summer is a nice one. This has been nice for us. 

Thanks for reading and letting me share my rug pictures. I am very thankful to have this place to share what I have been doing. 

~Kim~

"Once I might have wished for that: never to grow old. But now I know that to stay young always is also not to change. And that is what life's all about---changes going on every minute, and you never know when something begins where it's going to take you."

---A Gathering of Days, Joan W. Blos, 1979