For the last two years I have been having small workshops at my home in Pemberville, OH. These classes are special because I have time to get to know each of the students. You are not lost in a group of 12 or 15 or even 19. It is a better experience for me and for you.

For full details visit the Rug Hooking Workshop page.

A workshop in this format is more affordable because the instructional fee is lower than many rug camps and you only need a hotel room and meals for a few days rather than almost a week. You are guaranteed to get into my class and you will love the topics taught because YOU determine what you want to learn. We can design patterns, get out the dye pots or color plan multiple rugs. Everyone in your group can be doing something different. After teaching classes of 15 or more students since 2001, these smaller classes of just 2-8 students are a joy to teach.

Use the buttons below to navigate the calendar. If you are booking further in the future, please call me for available dates. Sometimes I just need a reminder to sit down and schedule more dates. Look for the green “Available” bars.

When a date has been requested, it will turn orange. It will become red when the date is no longer available. Brown bars are workshops that are usually out of town for me and I do not have a say in the enrollment. Contact the director of the camp. The weekly Friday classes are in Pemberville, OH.

I am retiring from the rug hooking camp circuit

After 2014, I will not be teaching as regularly on the road. The process of bringing the wool down from upstairs, loading it in the car, driving for a day or two, unpacking it and then repeating has worn me out. I’m not ready to give up teaching. You’ll just have to come to me for in person instruction.

Can’t travel? Use the internet to learn rug hooking

Another mode of instruction that I will be exploring this summer is video training. Students will sign up for a course of videos and get unlimited access to them. Watch them all at once, spread them over several days, or take months or even years to get through them. The choice is yours. Because not everything is perfect in a video, I will have live question and answer sessions where you can ask questions about the class, make suggestions for new class titles, or just sit back, watch and listen to the questions asked by other students. You decide your level of participation. Show up for every Q&A or just show up now and then. Space will be limited, but if there is heavy interest, I will have multiple sessions. Can’t wait for an answer? Just call me. My phone number is at the top of the website. All I ask is that you honor the hours I’ve posted.

Hint: You will get your best answers in the morning.

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If you receive weekly emails, you don’t have to worry about this, but if you want to know what happened. . .

Sorry for the email notice you received on Thursday. I thought the RSS feed emails were scheduled to go out later in the day and I should have had plenty of time to delete the post before it was sent. I had to publish the post to test the hangout, but I intended to delete it as soon as the test was finished. Instead the emails were sent out to everyone just minutes after I finished the testing.

I announced the video on Facebook and Google+ a few days before. I knew it would be seen by a small audience, not everyone is on social media. That was the intent — to test with a small group. I worked with a friend in North Carolina on the phone to see if she could connect, but we had all kinds of trouble.

Once I get the kinks worked out, I will have a regular schedule and reminder system to alert you to the on-line class times. You will know the date, the time, the time zone, the topic and anything else I can think of. The broadcast video will be recorded and you can always watch it later if you cannot participate.

I am not a computer technician. I poke and prod and test. You, as my reader, got caught in the cross fire this time. I am sorry for the confusion.

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Once I get this figured out, I’ll pick a day and time and do this once a week. Any suggestions on frequency and time of day? Leave a comment.

The post Test of First Google Hangout appeared first on Rug Hooking with Cindi Gay.

Whipping a rug takes a long time. Ripping it out because you run out of yarn and have to start over with something else is a nightmare. Run the numbers before you begin.

Do a whipping test

Use a piece of scrap backing and prepare the edge so you can practice whipping. A section about 8″ long should be enough. Here are some posts to get you started:

Use one piece to whip your scrap sample. Now enter your numbers above and count out the number of strands you need. Do you have enough? You’ll know right away.

No time to do a test? Most rugs will only use a fraction of a skein. You can whip 594 inches or just under 50 feet using my example of 4.5″ of whipping from a 60″ strip using my favorite whipping yarn.

My Favorite Whipping Yarn-Brown Black

I love this yarn for whipping the edge. I use it whenever the color works. The brown/black is especially useful because it goes with most rugs. Cascade 220 Color #9458. weight: 100 grams/3.5 oz. 220 yards.
100% wool.
Available Qty: 59

Price: $11.00

My Favorite Whipping Yarn-Green Black

This is the same yarn as My Favorite Whipping Yarn, just in a different color. Instead of brown mixed with black, this is green mixed with black. Cascade 220 Color #9413. weight: 100 grams/3.5 oz. 220 yards.
100% wool.

Price: $11.00

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Some like it complicated, but some like it simple and you can’t get much more simple than this footstool rug hooking pattern. Just one large sunflower and two crows.

You could modify the shape of some of the petals as I did in the Crows and Sunflowers Footstool Pattern. Hook a few of the dropped petals on the ground. Give the crows some personality. They are large enough for some real fun such as a vest and straw hat and an apron for the lady.

One Large Sunflower Footstool Pattern

One simple large sunflower and two crows facing each other. Hook it as simply as you like or add your own patterns into the center of the sunflower or on the crows. Either way this bit of summer can be at your feet all year long.

Price: $69.00

As I was drawing them, I envisioned them in red, white and blue. Maybe a blue check for the wing and red and white stripes on the body or just carve out a square for the blue field on the head of one bird and the tail of the other.

You could hook the center of the sunflower with hit and miss to bring in some color and interest. If the center is hit and miss, why not make the “ground” hit and miss too!

Don’t let the coloring in the illustration fool you into thinking you can only hook this with a light background. You can make the background really dark and your crows lighter or the crows really dark with a medium-dark background. Add in a halo line of something related to your background wool, but lighter and your crows will really pop!

Another option would be to hook a realistic sky using my sky wool. Draw an X on the top of the pattern from corner to corner, then divide the four house shaped areas into the four zones you need to hook sky. The sun flower will cover up most of the area so you’ll need to adjust it so you use the wool evenly. Hook the darkest value around the sunflower. You’ll start with a circle but it will gradually straighten out as you move down the sides.

Wool for hooking a Natural Sky - 1/8 yard

Use the method shown in Pine Trees, Grass and Sky with this wool to hook a beautiful natural looking sky.
Size: 1/8 yard
Available Qty: 166

Price: $7.50

The post One Large Sunflower Footstool Rug Hooking Pattern appeared first on Rug Hooking with Cindi Gay.

Jane wanted a footstool pattern with sunflowers and crows that she could hook in a large cut, 9 or 9.5. After some fiddling and talking back and forth, this is the first of the new sunflower footstool patterns.

Possible ideas to modify this rug hooking pattern:

• Add more dropped petals. I only drew one in, but you could do more.
• Add silly straw hats to the crows
• Hook an intricate pattern inside the center of the flowers
• Hook it in non-traditional sunflower colors, such as purple

How would YOU modify the pattern?

Crows and Sunflowers Footstool

This pattern is simple enough to be hooked in very large cuts or use smaller cuts and introduce a lot of variety. Add more dropped petals if desired.

Price: $69.00

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Choosing the right wool is all about choosing the right value. Color is important, but value is what makes it work. Look at these wools I pulled off the shelf to hook a pine tree. Will they work? The colors look right, but are the values right?

One way to check is with a value finder. As usual, I could not find mine but I don’t use it much anyways. They come in many shapes and sizes, sometimes in two colors, red and green. Use the green one for cool colors and the red for warm colors. When in doubt, use them both. With the Easter season approaching, you can use red or green cellophane, the stuff used to wrap Easter baskets. The problem with this material is that it wrinkles easily and the wrinkles make it harder to see the wool. It does not travel very well.

Technology has changed so much in just the last year or so that I no longer need the value finders. The easiest method is to take a photograph and then change the photograph to greyscale. Your camera may have an option for this, but the view finder is quite small and can be difficult to see.

My favorite gadget, the iPad, can make this really easy. Just search the app store for grayscale or greyscale (you’ll get different results) and try one of the free apps. The one I really like is called Grayscale Camera. I works just like the camera on the ipad except it gives you a small black and white preview in the lower left. You may not even need to snap the photo!

UPDATE: This app is an iPhone app. After you search, you will have to select the button at the top of the page for iPhone. The app works just as well on the ipad. After installing, just click the 2x button once in the lower right. It will fill the screen and act just like an iPad app.

From this photo we can tell that there is enough difference between the values. The color really doesn’t matter. Flip this around and use the grayscale method to choose your background wools. If you can’t tell a difference in black and white, you will not see a difference once they are hooked. They will blend beautifully.

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Enjoy this animated rug show from the Beaconsfield Hooking Crafters Guild. Not your usual slide show. I wonder what my rugs would look like animated like this? They really come to life. The show is created by their webmaster, Maria Romero. Thanks for the permission to share this, Maria!

Christmas and Winter Celebration from Beaconsfield Hooking Crafters on Vimeo.

• The animated show is created by their webmaster, Maria Romero.
• Copyright 2012 Beaconsfield Hooking Crafters Guild.
• Music is Jingle Bells from the Album Magic of Christmas, Performed by the Starlite Orchestra, Madacy Entertainement Group Inc., Canada.

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How to hook a regular sky

I use an easy method with my specially dyed sky wool to hook a normal day time sky.

Wool for hooking a Natural Sky - 1/8 yard

Use the method shown in Pine Trees, Grass and Sky with this wool to hook a beautiful natural looking sky.
Size: 1/8 yard
Available Qty: 166

Price: $7.50

This sky does not have any shading, but the water does…

How to rug hook the water

I custom dyed the wool for this project. You can hook anything with the right wool. We’ll use the sky method I use in my book, Pine Trees, Grass and Sky to rug hook this water.

Break the water area on your pattern and the spot dyed wool into the same number of sections. Four is an easy number. Split it in half and then each section into half. For finer control split it further, into eight or even sixteen sections (a yard is easily split into 16 pieces). This is explained in more detail in the book.

Dyed wool

Wool divided into sections

Once you identify your sections, hook the water using only wool from section one in section one, only section two wool goes into section two, etc. You can find more information about this technique in my book, Pine Trees, Grass and Sky.

Use the fine cut shading method to number the wool, the lightest value is always number 1. Note that the water in the photo is lighter at the bottom and darker at the top. Arrange the wool in that manner to number your sections. This is different than the “standard” way I describe in the Pine Trees, Grass and Sky book but it is right for this project.

Unusual lighting or other conditions will often “break the rules.”

What cut size should I use to rug hook the water?

Because the distances are so vast in this photo, let’s use the cut size of the wool to our advantage. Start with a larger cut closer to the viewer (at the bottom of the rug) and decrease the cut size as you move away. Objects get smaller as they move into the distance and changing the cut size helps with that illusion.

Start with a size 8 and move in sections to as small as a 4, depending on the size of your pattern. The larger the pattern, the more vast the image, the greater the span of cut sizes. A small pictorial could move from just a six to a 4, for instance.

A gradual change in cut size helps the ground or water to “lay down” instead of looking like a green or blue wall.

It is more important in this particular pattern to change the cut size because the spot dyed wool will automatically create the waves. We want the waves or ripples to look smaller in the distance. Changing the cut size will do that automatically. Again, with the right wool you can hook anything!

How to rug hook a sunset sky

There is no need to use a special method for this nighttime sky. While it is still important to avoid bricks in the sky (see the section on how to hook sky in the book, Pictorial Basics: Pine Trees, Grass and Sky), there is no need to mark the sky into 4 sections. The color is consistent from top to bottom creating the illusion of darkness.

The post How to rug hook a sunset sky and water using specially dyed wool appeared first on Rug Hooking with Cindi Gay.

I received a call from Rhonda Smith about dyeing wool for a sunset sky. An image popped in my mind. I asked her to mail me the photo she had in mind (colors do not always translate well in emails because everyone’s monitor can show colors very differently.) When it arrived it was remarkably different that what I had in mind. Now that I knew what she wanted, I was ready to get to work. Rhonda needed one yard for water and one for sky.

The dye recipes

First I dyed one yard of wool using Robin’s Egg, #14A from my book, Dyeing by the Numbers, at double strength.* As soon as the water cleared, I felt comfortable starting the second pot. I always cook for at least 30 minutes after the water comes to a near boil and after the acid has been added. I usually cook blues a bit longer because they fade the fastest.

*I used a recipe 4x the original because the recipe is intended for 1/2 yard. Since I was dyeing over 1 yard (twice the amount) I needed 4x the recipe to dye it at double strength. See you DO need math after the 4th grade! . . . or this simple fraction technique.

The emergency swap

As the first pot continued to process, I noticed it was getting too dark. Wool will be lighter when it is dry, but even allowing for the drying it was too dark. I glanced over at the second pot and it looked about right.

I took these photos immediately after putting the second yard of wool in the pot. I intended to use the photo for an article on dyeing. Even though both pots are lighter here and cooked for a while before I noticed the problem, the photos below still illustrates what is going on.

I immediately took the first darker yard of wool out of the clear water and put it in an empty pot, then I moved the second yard from the still blue water and put it in the first pot. The dark wool went back into the second pot and cooked in the lightly colored blue water, allowing it to get even darker.

My intent was to stop the second yard from getting any darker. I reset the clocks, added acid to be sure each pot had enough and began processing again.

By going slow, I avoided having two yards that were the wrong value. I’ve learned this lesson the hard way.

Spot dyeing the water

Once both pieces were done, I need to spot the water and make the sky darker to coordinate. I used the spot dye method described in my book, Dyeing by the Numbers. I spotted the wool with 15B Deep Water and some more of 14A Robin’s Egg, concentrating the bulk of the dye at one end and only lightly spotting the other end. Then I baked it for an hour to set the wool before dyeing the sky darker. It would be relatively easy to match the solid sky to the spotted water rather than the other way around.

Dyeing the sky wool

Comparing wet to wet I poured and cooked, poured and cooked until I had a match that I liked. The goal was to match the darker end of the spot dyed wool. I used the same dyes that I did in the spot dye, a bit of 14A and 15B.

Tomorrow I will show you how to hook with this wool.

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