Back to rug hooking, a major revision on the web site is done.

Sorry I haven't posted in a while. I wanted to get to a milestone on my website progress and it took longer than I thought it would. The structure behind my website is done. I will be revising and moving the "old" pages to the new format, one by one. In the meantime, all the old pages are still available.

For the next two weeks I will be preparing for Cedar Lakes rug camp. Hope to see you there. I will be doing some hooking, so look for a new picture around Mother's Day.

Alaina helps me dye again

Here is Ally helping my get ready to dye today. The bottom picture is of Ally several years ago when she helped me test my dye book colors. Notice the difference in her height. She is officially taller than me.

Thanks for voting

The contest ended Easter morning and Amanda did not win. The winner was chosen by a panel of judges. She did have the most votes, so thank you to everyone who took the time to vote.

Tomorrow is a big dyeing day. My granddaughter, Alaina, is staying with me for a few days and we will be dyeing up a storm. We started folding and organizing wool in the studio tonight. She wore me out. She actually likes to straighten and organize the wool. She even sorted each color family from light to dark. I will have to take new studio pictures before I mess it all up. I will try to remember to take pictures tomorrow so you can see us dyeing.

Side note: please vote for your favorite Blog TV show

http://www.myspace.com/blog_tv
Visit the link above and vote for your favorite Blog TV show. Scroll all the way to the bottom for the voting area. If you do not have a favorite, consider voting for Amandarama. She is my son's girlfriend and lives with him in NYC. They have been together so long that I consider her my daughter-in-law. The grand prize is a trip around the world!

Hooked Purse Progress

I spent last week at Southern McGown Teachers' Workshop. Rubbing elbows with all those teachers really gets the creative juices flowing.

My sewing machine broke so I tried to sew the lining together by hand. I took the supplies with me to workshop and would have been able to use the purse if the lining was a better design. I have the purse together and love the shape.

The handles were attached by sewing them on with a leather tool that my husband had in his tool collection. A quick lesson later and the handles were professionally attached. Now if I can just get the lining right. I will try again and show you the final product when it is done.

The top edge is finished with a crocheted edge. Just prepare the edge in the same way you prepare for a whipped edge. Then crochet with a #7 or #8 cut strip. I sell pieces of natural wool that are 15 yards long and the equivalent of 1 yard. I dye and cut this into strips to crochet the edge so I have one complete piece and not a lot of ends.

Thank you to all of you who have sent me emails or made comments here. It helps to remind me to get a new post up and keeps me focused. Yesterday I decided to do what I preach. Five strips minimum a day will complete a rug. It felt good to get hooking on the big rug again.

Right now the dye pots are out and I am getting ready for the workshop season, but I still plan to squeeze in at least five strips a day.

Rug Hooked Purse

I haven't hooked much on the large rug. Instead I have been messing with the computer. Some good and some bad, such as reformatting and troubleshooting problems.

A few days ago I decided I wanted a new purse to take with me to Teachers' Workshop. I knew what shape I wanted, but I was struggling with the design. I wanted to include the new rose motif that I have been using in my current rug designs. I could not come up with a design I liked and the clock was ticking. I leave this Sunday so I decided to hook it with a simple geometric pattern instead.

I have been trying some breathing and meditation techniques. One morning it was like the window to my creativity was flung wide open. Why not include both? I had already hooked one side, but the second side was still blank rug warp.

I drew in the rose and changed the leaves as I hooked and then I filled in with the square background. I love the result.

I had planned to keep this blog strictly for the large rug, but I thought you might enjoy seeing my other projects. This design has spurred a new stair riser pattern for those of you who are hooking the stair riser series I am designing for Spruce Ridge Studios. Check with Kris Miller to see when it will be available.

No new rug hooking to report

I have been away from the frame for too long, but I refuse to file another extension on my income taxes. I've done that for the last few years and this year I will be on time. The last few weeks have been filled with paperwork.

As an update to the rug hooking world.... My thoughts and prayers go out to Kim Nixon. As many of you know, her breast cancer has returned after 10 years. It was a real blow, but Kim is still in business. In fact, I ordered patterns before she had emergency surgery. They are less than 1 week late. Kim has help and someone is drawing the patterns under her watchful eye. You can place an order and be confident that you will receive it. Kim needs our support, order those patterns!

Go to www.undertherug.com.

A new floor!, well almost. . .

My husband was off for the holiday and had a three day weekend. We worked all three days and got about 1/2 way done. We are both feeling the aches and pains and looked forward to getting back to regular work today.

If you are one of my studio students, the floor probably will not be done for class on Friday, but the class goes on! We will probably have more room because all the furniture is stacked up on the finished side of the room.

The flooring is Bellawood Brazilian Mesquite. It is about the same color as cherry. When I learned that the cherry darkens over age, we decided against it. Not because we didn't like a darker color, but because you have to constantly move the furniture for about a year so that the aging happens evenly. Some of my furniture weighs a ton. It is not likely that we could move it around every couple of weeks. They even recommended not putting down an area rug for at least a year. I've been hooking my fingers off. When this rug is done, it is going on the floor. The mesquite color is stable, so we don't have to worry about playing musical furniture.

New Website Name! cindigayrughooking.com

Thank you to everyone who emailed their opinions on the website name. A special thanks to Sunnie Andress of sunnieandressdesigns.com. The majority of you thought my name was an important part of the website name. Sunnie suggested www.cindigayrughooking.com. Perfect!

I purchased that name AND www.cindygayrughooking.com. I am now back to a name that reflects who I am, what the site is about and I don't have to spell it every time I give it out.

I am still on the computer a lot, but I am making some rug hooking progress. I have moved everything back to the studio upstairs because I now have 19 boxes of Bellawood Brazilian Mesquite sitting in the kitchen ready for installation in the living room.

I might have some progress shots this weekend if we can line up a nailer. . .

P.S. That is Gracie, my new kitten, keeping me company while I hook. The rug has gotten so big that the pile of it behind the frame and in front of my Ott light is just the right size for a comfortable cat bed.

I need to rename my website, please vote.

In November I had a billing mix up with my web host. As a result, I lost the rights to www.cindygay.com (Cindi with a y). My website is still OK because I use www.cindigay.com (with two i's). Before I realized what happened, a porno site picked up my name. Just a day or so later, I saw an article on the Internet about how this is happening quite often. I haven't had the courage to visit the site (there is an opening warning about the content) so I don't know if there is (ahem...) a legitimate reason for them to pick up the name.

For the last five years I have been telling everyone that my website is www.cindigay.com and if they entered www.cindygay.com they still got to my website, so the spelling was not important. Now it is. I reserved the following names. Which do you prefer? Do you have something else in mind? I'd love to hear your ideas. Please email them to me at rugmail-blog@yahoo.com.

• www.cindigay.com
• www.rughookingexplained.com
• www.rughookinglessons.com
• www.rughooklessons.com
• www.rughooksupplies.com

Day 99. I am settled into the circle border with one exception. Do I want to hook multi-colored spots in between the circles, or do I want to keep that feature consistent? I have already ruled out hooking all the background black. I like the way the extra spots almost camouflage the circles. Hooking an all black background made the circles stand out too much.

As you can see I started on the right with multi-colored spots. I switched to a beige wool to hook the spots and am tinkering with the idea of using that as the background for the major border. That border is the one that started everything with the stair risers, Queen Anne Rose and Annie's Scrolls, available at Spruce Ridge Studios. On my page you will need to scroll down about half way to see the stair risers.

The biggest lesson here is that I hooked the new idea (all one color spots) that came to me to see what it looked like. AND I am not taking out my first attempt. I may even hook more mult-colored spots until I am sure of my decision. I will not change the discarded idea until I have no more room to hook. I often find that leaving the little oddities in the rug (usually because I just plain forget to go back) make the rug so much more interesting. I try to never rip out until I need that room to hook.

How easily we forget!

My focus for the last two years has been to "get crooked." I thought I had made a breakthrough with Karen Kahle at Sauder Village in 2006. I was working on her Antique Rose Runner during the lunch break. All the other students were off eating and I was so excited about what and how I was hooking that I decided to work through lunch.

A woman came into the classroom to see what we were working on. I sat on the far side of the room. When she made her way to me, I stretched out the backing so she could get a better view. "Nice," she mumbled. I then explained how I was concentrating on making everything crooked. She brightened up and said, "Oh, it is supposed to be that way."

She probably felt sorry for me. This poor hooker can't hook a straight line!

I love this story because that week changed my hooking dramatically. I explained the feeling to my friends as "hooking naked." I had no cares about what row I was hooking in. I grabbed whatever color was on top. I turned my brain off and hooked away. I had that rug finished within two weeks of coming home. I usually return from camp with less than a square foot hooked.

I applied this mind set to the design of this rug. The four corners are slightly different. Nothing is perfect. But when I got to hooking the boundaries for the hit and miss, I hooked three rows in perfect alignment. I was unhappy about the look, see the post for Day 35! It took me this long to figure out what was wrong. This is one reason I always move out to the borders ASAP.

I decided to use the line I drew for the edge as a guideline only. I wavered three holes left and right at random. Then I hooked another strip on each side for the three rows I wanted. Much better. You can see the crooked rows in the post for Day 094. In Day 065 you can see how much of the straight stuff I ripped out.

I don't have this rug in my rug gallery on my website yet. I will let you know here when it is up and ready. www.cindigay.com

Border progress-Cat's paw

I have always loved the Cat's Paw rugs. I wanted to include this design in one of the minor borders, but I was afraid that it would look too modern. I decided to hook up a section. It looks great. Do you agree? I decided to make the background the darkest background value that I am using to outline the motifs in the center of the rug.

This test proves that what looks bad (or good) on paper as a black and white drawing can look very different once it is hooked. If I had not been so determined to find a way to make this design work, I would never have attempted it. On paper it looks very modern and completely out of sync with the center.

Day 94 Finally got to hook!

I finally got to hook New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. My husband, David, and I rented videos and stayed indoors. --It's cold out there! Especially after my days in the Florida keys.