Deanne Fitzpatrick Rug Hooking Studio

simplicity reigns...a simple view from the Hen House, a nice decor shop in the Hydrostone

Dear Diary, A long beautiful day in the city with unexpected surprises has made me want to rush home and create. On a trip to Halifax yesterday, I left the crowded farmers market to get a bit of fresh air, and there across the street was my sister , husband and neice. They were in the city to meet my nephew, the editor of The Northern Pen, in St. Anthony, NL. So we agreed to meet them all for lunch. She lives a few minutes away from me but I forgot she was going into the city. Then I meandered to the north end of the city for a cup of coffee and an almond croissant at Julians Bakery. I like the Hydrostone market at the North end of the city. I like to buy loafs of fresh bread to take back home, meander in the Yarn shop, and the Hen House. I found a few good yarns for a rug I am working on. I got a a nice nubbly noro yarn, and I even bought a fleece artist spruce. I carry the fleece artist but the exact colour was right there in mohair, and I am hooking the Blomidin cliffs. I wanted it right then, so I got it. At the Hen House, I bought great containers to use for display in the studio.

 When I am away I look for ideas to carry back with me. I have learned that though I am not a great traveller, other are and they carry ideas back from everywhere, and lay them out for everyone to see. The truth is , everyones back step is a little different, so there is always a old idea to reinvent. Yesterday in the “Hen House” I was taken with a simple bit of a hens and chicken plant in a glass vase. The simplest of things catch your eye and make you feel like you want to support a place. I bought display racks for my own place.
I had a similar experience at ,” Fred ”, a cafe, gallery and hair salon on Agricola Street. Everything was done so well , from the light fixtures, to the muffins. It just made you feel good to be in such a creative space. Lynn Rotin’s big bowl paintings were hung in tha gallery. He had created his own cosmetic line that were presented clearly and beautifully. I just bought a lipstick, but I’ll go back for another one just so I can stand around in there for a little while.

I went to the Loop on Barrington Street where I met Mimi the owner, and found the perfect Peruvian Yarn for my spruce hills, yet another one. In our conversation I asked her why the “yarn harlot”, connected so well with knitters, and she explained to me that she did not know why, but that Stephanie Pearl Macphee, is to knitters what Erma Bombeck was to housewives and that through her website the yarn harlot has raised over a million dollars for Medicin san Frontiers, or Doctors without Borders. Her simple explanation gave me a little clarity. Her store is also a cafe, a couple of knitters were sitting down pouring over patterns and imagining their next project. It had it’s own feeling, one of comfort, like knitting itself, and Mimi was sweet.

One last stop at Turbine, to buy a shift fromLisa Drader Murphy, that I’ll wear in the studio all summer. I love dresses in the summer. They can’t be beat because you only have to put on one thing. How simple is that? I love it that someone came up with the design, found the fabric, made the dress, and knows how to dress big boned girls. Now, this dress is coral, so the only fault with it is that I cannot go out back to my dye kitchen with it  on. As Brenda who works with me will tell you, a good dress won’t keep me out of the dye kitchen, if I get the urge.

So the country girl can go to the city and see how things are done there, then come home all inspired, and slip a few ideas in here and there, but really once she gets back home, she becomes herself again, and does things her way, the only way she knows how, even if it is in a new coral shift with fresh lipstick. I love the city for the day. I could go back again next week, and do it all again, as long as I could come home here to seven acres, and my wool, and books, and bits of paper at night.

Dear Diary, Today on a little road trip I ended up in Fox Point, looking out to Cape Split. When I turned in the other direction there was a vista of grey and blue, where big tidal pools, interupted the beach rock. I saw an abstract rug, went back got my sketch book just to lay down the form. I find those terrible sketches, made in a minute are not much good on their own, but they trigger memory and make me remember where I was and what I saw.

Dear Diary , this week, I was going to create an anemone rug rug, three big flowers with a cream background but somehow, I got way layed with white and found some gold that looked nothing short of dangerous with the red and the black. It looked like nothing I’d ever do, and then I realized that is good reason to do it. I came home early today because I missed it. The rug called me back.

Dear Diary, Tonight when I went to yoga only two people showed up for the class but the teacher taught like there was ten. It did not matter how many where there, but that we had come. I appreciated that sort of earnestness. Doing something well regardless. I take this aproach to using my wool now. No matter how small the rug, or how simple the design, I use the very best colours, textures, that I have to offer it, even if it is only a hot mat. Even if the design is as simple as stripes, a rug requires the best you have to have give, or why bother with it at all. I sometimes savour a special wool, using it a bit at a time, like a good bit of chocolate. But like a good bit of chocolate, if something overtakes me I will use it all up at once if the rug is crying out for it.

Dear Diary, the truth about a good hit and miss is that it rarely hit and miss. I select the colours carefully and even dye wools for it to get it just right. It is about selection, and choice, knowing what thin slice of colour feels right against another thin slice of colour. It is a deliberate thing, relaxed but deliberate.