One of a kind Hooked Rugs, Rug Hooking Kits, Patterns and Supplies

summer day workshops 2010

July 22nd, 2010

Beginner to Intermediate Workshops Summer 2010
 

hookingrugs.com

Summer Fields of Northumberland Sraight

Call us to register at 902-667-0560 or 1-800-328-7756

Summer Fields and Sushi with Deanne Fitzpatrick
 August 11, 10am to 3pm
this will be a unique workshop focusing on creating texture in the landscape using lots of interesting yarns, wool fabrics and silks. It will not be a kit based workshop, rather you will choose your own personal favorites for texture and colour. It will emphasize freedom of movement, being brave with colour, and taking time out to create. My friend Yoshiko will join us at noon and treat us to a beatiful lunch of Sushi, in her own creative style cost $125


Natural Dyeing workshop – August 10th 10am-5pm with Joanna Close

Using gathered plants as well as purchased natural dyes (cochineal, logwood and madder root) we will dye wool. Learn which plants will give dye and how to process them for use. We will also talk about mordants and how to get various colours using different mordants. Bring a lunch $98 includes supplies

For the fall …October 2010

 A four week course….
Poppies on the Edge of Town 12 by 16”
 
Hooking Rugs from Start to Finish
A  Complete Beginner Course
 for beginner to early intermediates,
 Includes large pattern and supplies, $125,
hoops and hook are extra $20

Wednesday Evenings from 4pm to 6pm , Four Weeks, October 20 to November 10
We’ll have a pot of tea and a snack each week to hold your supper over. This workshop will focus on all the elements of basic hooking, and finishing a rug. It is a comprehensive course, focusing on landscape, sky, texture, and houses and if you hook some each week at home you should be well on your way to completing a project.


wave after wave

July 31st, 2010

Dear Diary, there is a big wind up today and the water is rough. I love it. It is all I can hear, more even than my thoughts. I sat and did six rows of hit and miiss squares with the waves banging against the shore. Once in a while you could hear someone squeal with delight when a wave hit them. Sound overtakes our mind some. It can be soothing, like a mantra, or it can be like a grate, depending on the sound. The water, the waves are a calm sound, though they themselves are no way calm. They are strong and agressive, crashing, yet they lull me. Between that sound and my hook thrumming, I am lucky I am not in a trance. Perhaps I am.


it’s not what you got , it’s how you keep it

July 27th, 2010
www.hookingrugs.com
Dawn at the Bay 13 by 14″ $130.00

Dear Diary, Yesterday I took a picture of the sky outside the studio. It was palest grey, but if I were to hook it I might not choose grey for it. A sky can be any colour. I think of the blackbirds I hooked on a red sky. Changing the colour like this means that sky is interpretive. It might be sky, or it might be something else. You are left to wonder.

Yesterday I picked a nice little bundle of raspberries in my own yard, and turned out a little raspberry cake wiith brown sugar sauce to share with some friends. It felt quite bountiful to have them growing in your own garden. Having them, and then taking the time to pick them makes you feel good. It is like making the best of what you got. Years ago, I heard a woman interviewed on CBC radio and they were talking about wealth. The guest said, her mother’s line was “It don’t matter if you live in a trailer, or mansion. It’s not what you got, it’s how you keep it.” I think it is true that how you keep things might tell us more about you, then what you got. Perhaps. I like the idea of keeping things in good shape, whether it be the raspberry bushes or the paint on the house. Keeping things together, tidily. Sometimes now when I fret a little over something not being good enough, I remind myself it’s not what you got, Deanne, it’s how you keep it.

a camera in my pocket

July 24th, 2010

Dear Diary, It is so easy now to gather images, to gather information. We are inudated with pictures and thoughts, whether in blogs, on tv, magazines and newspapers. Information is often free and easy. Today I took soome pictures of flowers. I snapped and snapped away, reminded that at one time, everytime I snapped a camera there was a price attached. You had to think of the cost of the film. It is the same wiith long distance phone calls. One time, when someone called long distance you would speak swiftly, counting the minutes. There was more of a price attached to conversation. The talk seemed more valuable. I proballly took fifty pictures in the last few days. We seize the moment from behind the camera, but so often nothing happens with any of those pictures. They are stored on hard drives, lost in a techno vaccuum. I said to myself, I am going to look at these shots, be reminded of ewhat I saw, what I recorded. It is not just the taking of pictures that matters, it is the value they offer later on, a reminder of the moment that a detail interested you enough to record it. I headed out on the beach to shoot a starfish but neither emerged. Instead there is the shape of the hills, the rolling of the tide in the sand, and a few bathing beauties. There is always a lot to see and I suppose carrying a camera with you makes you look for something of note. It makes you seek out the beauty.


lollygag and imagine

July 23rd, 2010

Dear Diary, yesterday I headed for a drive in the rain, and I was so tired I got to Fort Beasejour, a few miles away pulled over and had a little rest, sat and drew a bit. Instead of heading out on an adventure I decided to go home and enjoy the rainy day. The rain cooled things down a bit so I laid under a crocheted blanket on the bed in my  house studio with a Henning Mankell novel and fell fast asleep. A rainy summer day, so perfect, so peaceful. When I got  up I took a drive into the downtown studio to feel a bit of the day I had missed, and picked up new potatoes, and local vegetables. This time of year there is nothing better than fresh boiled potatoes glistening with butter for supper. Simple days of summer, freshness, warm winds. Feeling light weight, with a light mind and heart. I schedule my summers, by booking hardly a thing. In the two months I ussually have one or two things written in my book. I’ll add things a few days in advance but truthfully, I like to look at a blank calender, so that I am free to come and go. I don’t plan which means sometimes I am simply bored, and there is nothing left to do but go to the beach, or read, or draw, or imagine what one could do. It is a space for lollygagging….free the time, free the mind.


Marion Kennedy and being yourself….

July 19th, 2010

Marion Kennedy taught me how to hook twenty years ago

Dear Diary , It will be twenty years ago this fall, that Marion Kennedy taught me how to hook rugs. Marion was very strong minded , and quite abrupt. Essensially she showed me the stitch, and said, “now go finish it.” When I questioned whether I should pull something out, she said, “just finish that one, you’ll get better as you go along.” At the time I was twenty five, and Marion was about sixty five. We were generations apart but she had an appreciation that I might want to approach rug hooking in my own way. She taught me how, and let me find out the rest. She never imposed a bunch of rules. I only met Marion three times in the next twenty years. Once she came to a hook in we had in Amherst, the next time she came with her good friend Kay Purdy to my home for the afternoon, and I drew her a pattern of hockey players. Last summer I stopped to visit her at a nursing home where she resided after becoming ill. This winter, her daughter called me to let me know that her mother had died and that I was invited to join them for a memorial service at the Pictou Lodge in July. I went last Friday to learn about and celebrate Marions’  life. Though I only knew Marion a little, I did know her. She was a woman who said what she felt. She was expressive, kind, and giving. It was clear that she was a good mother, who raised a good family, and pursued her interests and passions through out her life. In a slide show put together by her family they featured many of the rugs she had made over the years. I could not help but think, all we leave behind is what we make of our lives, what we create, our children, our handwork, our love and forgiveness, our spirit.
I was honoured to have been included in such an intimate portrait of Marion. It was held at the Pictou Lodge, on the shores of the Northumberland straight, where Marion liked to take people for lunch. Her son, and daughter, spoke lovingly about her, and her son in law held a sweetgrass ceremony. On the table was a beautiful photograph of Marion, and a recipe booklet that she had developed when she ran a strawberry farm in Ontario. I learned that she raised her children in Ontario, and moved back to Nova Scotia later on in life. I learned that she picked up rug hooking after her children had left home, and she was feeling the empty nest. I learned that she liked clothes, knew how to hold a grudge, but could forgive. Alot of the things I learned about Marion were things I knew from meeting her just a few times. I think that through just a few encounters, I did know the real Marion. I was reminded that though it might not seem like you really know someone well, sometimes you do. Some people are so much themselves all the time, no cover, no show, that small encounters reveal alot. I love this kinfd of person, the kind that Marion was.

I was also reminded that small encounters change lives in dramatic ways. Marion and I, though we met only a few times had a great respect for each other. She, in a few moments with a few words changed the course of my life, and lead me to fine place. A place where I could become fully myself.  She taught me that I own my own hands and I am the only one who should tell me how to use them. She taught me that rules in rug hooking are for the maker of the rug to decide, not a teacher or a guild, or a book. She taught me resolve. Though she never talked about any of these things at any length, I felt them in the strength of her hands and in the light of her eyes. She might have seemed grumpy but she sparkled, a most interesting combination.

We are here on this earth, my mother in law, always says, to be good to each other.  I agree. I think we are here, to facilitate each others journeys, to teach, and to show,  to learn and to lead. Marion Kennedy facilitated mine, and I am lucky to have met her. She made a difference in my life. Our encounters were few but they mattered. With each other, we were each ourselves, accepting of each other. She lead me gently, and freely let me go where I wanted with a craft so that it mattered to me. Marion was always proud to acknowledge that she had taught me how to hook, and I was always proud to acknowledge that she had.

hookingrugs.com

Marion Kennedy's Strawberry recipes


Summer fresh Tabouli

July 17th, 2010

1 cup crushed wheat , soak in 1 cup water and set aside.

Chop 2 large tomatoes, 2 cups fresh parsley, 1 green onion, 2 mint leaves  finely and lay on top of wheat.

Pour on 1/4 cup olive oil, and the juice of one lemon, two if you like, add salt and pepper. Don’t mix, just cover bowl with saran wrap and put in fridge for a few hours. Mix it up before serving. I make it in the morning and mix it for supper.


july newsletter

July 13th, 2010

 Right-click here to download pictures. To help protect your privacy, Outlook prevented automatic download of this picture from the Internet.
Shape of the Village   53 by 54″   $4200 Canadian     http://shop.hookingrugs.com/   

      News from the Studio

the bits and pieces of a studio life hooked together
www.hookingrugs.com
  July, 2010 

 
You can order anytime online or by calling 1-800-328-7756
http://shop.hookingrugs.com/
 
Tips

Start taking a few photos of the flowers in your garden, notice the simple and the complex shapes. Look at the centers and notice the details. When you go to hook flowers this little bit of time spent studying them will make quite a difference. For me there are few things more interesting than the centre of a poppy.

Workshops
http://www.hookingrugs.com/workshops.html

Summer Fields and Sushi with Deanne Fitzpatrick

 August 11, 10am to 3pm
this will be a unique workshop focusing on creating texture in the landscape using lots of interesting yarns, wool fabrics and silks. It will not be a kit based workshop, rather you will choose your own personal favorites for texture and colour. It will emphasize freedom of movement, being brave with colour, and taking time out to create. My friend Yoshiko will join us at noon and treat us to a beatiful lunch of Sushi, in her own creative style cost $125 includes materials and lunch

White on White Starfish
*A Summer Pillow*
 
Tomorrow…..Wednesday July 14, 9:30 to 12:00
beginner to intermediate, Includes supplies, $58, hoops and hook are extra $20
This workshop will focus on basic hooking, and mixing tone on tone creatively
Call us to register at 902-667-0560 or 1-800-328-7756

 

Quotes
“Not all of us are painters but we are all artists. Each time we fit things together we are creating-whether it is to make a loaf of bread, a child, or a day.” Corita Kent

New Products
http://shop.hookingrugs.com

Right-click here to download pictures. To help protect your privacy, Outlook prevented automatic download of this picture from the Internet. hookingrugs.com
We have beatiful bundles of fancy yarnTexture Bundles at $42.95, and Swatch Sets $9.95 with names like
Buttercup…Sunflower..Bay of Fundy, Sea and Cliffs, Lupin Lane, Back Hills, Rocky Island Coast…  Deep Blue Sea…Garden Party
There are so many they are not on the website so call us or just  tell  us what you are doing and we will put it together for you.

My new Audio book is now available either as a two cd set or a digital download

Order Dvd Deanne’ one hour DVD on hooking landscape, the sea, and the sky

The new catalog on the website shop contains many more products than before, including over 260 of our patterns available on scottish or primitive burlap or linen.
http://shop.hookingrugs.com/

We have beautiful new tote bags in turqouise, fuschia, and lime,
hand made birds nest earrings, 
a new selection of dyed wools, yarns and cloth,
and our one of a kind  huge patterns now on the website

Books

Ivor Johnson’s Neighbor’s by Bruce Graham is a fun and playful story set in Parrsboro
The Help by Katheryn Stockert

Inspirata
Road trips….just a day exploring your local area, finding beaches you have not walked on before. Take a day to find something new, close to home.

Recipes
maple vinagrette over greens
1/4 cup olive oil, 1/4 cup white wine vinegar, 3 tbsp maple syrup
Tossed over fresh lettuce, or other greens with chopped avacado, strawberries, and pan fried pecans

Diary

Dear Diary, This morning as I went about doing a few thing in the studio everything seemed to have a hold out, the printer runs out of ink, another machine runs out of paper, there is no stapler, tiny things that one time would have added up and gotten on my nerves. I remember there was a time when a series of small bothersome things would have changed my mood, the tune of my day. Occasionally they still can, but it isn’t easy anymore. There is something about my forties that has made me less likely to get charged up over foolishness. Once when I was bickering with Robert, my husband, he said, “Is that what you want to do now Deanne, ruin the evening?” I thought how true it was, how I could take a mood, and change the night, swing it from a nice night to a quarrelsome one.I have learned that I create my days, like I would make anything.  I have learned that the tone of my day is something I can choose, as long as I look after the basic needs, get my exercise, a few minutes to myself, rest, and good food, and time for my artwork. These are the bare necessities make all the difference. When I have a handle on these things, I can handle the small things that come at me.Women are notorious for looking after swarms of people while running themselves ragged. I have never really been in that category, as my art and my writing have always meant that I took time out for myself, to make things. I am compelled to make things, to take ideas and turn them into something.When you have an art or a craft that you can turn to, you offer yourself space. It gives you time to think, time to be yourself, and I think that it makes you better, a little calmer, maybe even a little nicer. Being creative makes me feel good. It gives me patience to put up w
ith myself, let alone others, because it soothes my soul, giving it a gentler touch than the one I was born with, and I am thankful for it.
 
The studio is open year round 9am to 4pm Monday to Friday and Saturday 10am to 3pm. We are located at 33 Church Street next door to
Mansour’s Mens Wear, Amherst, NS, Canada

www.hookingrugs.com
1-800-328-7756


we are recorded on bits of paper

July 10th, 2010

Dear Diary, I imagine that beautiful new ideas keep coming as long as you are looking foor them. Today I went to buy a few new magazines, just for the pleasure of a rainy day at the shore. As I poked through them, nothing was quite satisfying. I left with a good old reliable one, and the weekend Globe, and proceeded to mine the pages for ideas. In the middle of the read I jotted down a note in book, thinking that if I wrote it down, I would be more likely to do it. I have ideas that come and go, and generally I try to write to write them down if they have enough worthiness to reconsider later. The truth is though, sometimes I never get back to them for months. I try to review the bits and pieces that I write in my various books and journals every once in a while. The other day I did a small sketch of an idea I had for someone, and I could not bear really to have that sheet torn out of my book. It was an enormous moleskin sketch book, that was a beautiful gift from someone this spring. I had been savouring the book for sketches I was spending time on, keeping it precious, but I decidede to give that up, and start using it freely. I did the playful little sketchy ideas in it, but could not rip them out to give away. I joked that these were a record of my life. He photocopied them while I read the Amherst Daily. Sometimes when I go over my old sketch books now, the absent pages make me wonder what is gone. Most of the notes and drawing I make are inconsequential, but they are all a record of my tiniest moments, and I know that those tiny moments are all adding up to a life .


paths and small diversions

July 9th, 2010

Dear Diary, I am lucky in that I can be easily inspired. I pick up a magazine, or a book, and I can quickly be enraptured. I look up to lots of creative people, and I learn from watching them. Seeking out people and ideas that inspire you are real motivators in an artistic life. You want to find the sparks in your community and ignite them. We might enjoy having a real conversation with Martha Stewart, or Oprah Winfrey but very few of us will ever get closer to these kind of huge inspirational people than reading a book or an interview, watching a show. I like to look around my own community, people who are reachable to me, and who are doing things that matter where I live and I like to try and work with them. All around us there are people making, creating, cultivating, and growing a nicer community. When I run across their paths, sometimes I like to walk on it with them a bit because I learn, and sometimes I have a bit to offer. That is how my ideas evolve, it all depends on who walks in the door, who I run into. Once I meet someone I like then I like to work with them.