 Sparkly sparkly sparkly sneakers with a wool strip in between them on the floor of Diana's deck. Doesn't this say it all? Yes, we did it again! Met in person, that is. What a relief to be vaccinated and able to meet like this, something we all took for granted in the Before Times. About a dozen of us met on Diana's humongous deck, in the shade, in lovely cool Shelburne. The air was clear and cool enough to hook comfortably. We had members from MA, VT, and NH, and conversation never lagged. For samples of what people were working on, see below. Those of you who couldn't make it were much missed. Oh, and the sparkly sneakers above, which I badly coveted, were on Lynda's feet. What I noticed was that most people were starting new pieces. See below. NOTE: TO ENLARGE THE PHOTOS AND/OR READ THEIR CAPTIONS, CLICK ON EACH PHOTO. In July we'll meet at our usual venue, Greenleaves, in the air conditioned comfort of the very large Community Room. Look under the "Regular Meetings" tab of this website for details on date, time, and directions. Hope to see you there.
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FINALLY, finally finally. We are meeting in-person again. Several of us, all vaccinated, gathered on Lynda's very large deck behind her condo building. It was a very hot sunny Sunday and fortunately there were umbrellas and comfy chairs in the shade. But best of all, it was just wonderful to be hooking together again. There was a lot of business covered (see below), and a lot of rug ogling and rug hooking. Here are the photos to prove it:  Heron. Designed and hooked by Phyllis Lawrence, 2021. You have to see the water and waves up close to appreciate what she's done.  Deco Easter, a Cushing design hooked by Tricia Miller of NH in 2021. The Easter Bunny in person!  Spectacular "Bedrug Fantasy," designed by Marie Azzaro and color planned and hooked by Ann M. Cairns of Shrewsbury. 2020, 6-cut. We saw this beauty just begun in September of 2019 at the last Quabbin ATHA Hook-in at Shelburne Falls. We're having a revival of the hook-in in September of 2021 so look for details under the Upcoming Events tab here.  Snowed In, a design by Jean Benjamin, color planned and hooked by Ann M. Cairns, 2020. I believe she said this is a 6-cut with some smaller cuts tossed in for detail.  Chris Sackett's rug currently underway. A Fraser design but Chris is "winging it" and changing it to look more William Morris-ey. She was trying out various colors for her next border. What do you think?  Same rug as above, this time trying out some green. Fascinating to see what the different colors bring out as she tries them. There were some other rugs as well (including two finished Duncans) but yours truly was somewhat overheated and inept and didn't get pictures. You'll just have to come to a meeting and see for yourself! I went home with three pounds of wool yardage, gorgeous wools originally from Dorr. Lynda is looking to sell wool that's taking up space in her condo. There will be future wool sales at ridiculously low prices. This time it was only $6/lb.
Lynda wrote up some of the things we discussed at the meeting. Here are her comments: Highlights (not minutes) of the meeting, by Lynda: 1. Wool sale was held and some wool was bought by attendees but not enough! We agreed to sell wool at the Hook-In in September instead of having vendors.*** a. members can bring wool to the Hook-In to sell. b. at the next meeting we will decide who and where people will get together and bag (and price?) wool to sell at the Hook In. ***NOTE: YES, THERE WILL BE A HOOK-IN IN SEPTEMBER! 9/18/21 in fact. Make a note of the date and stay tuned for further details. 2. Attendees were asked if people would like to work on a group rug. -No- Attendees were asked if people would be interested in working on an agreed-upon idea: ******there was some interest in an open ended, widely interpreted idea like “atmosphere” or “community” etc. based on book Twelve of Twelve. To be discussed further 3 There was interest in taking a class as a group. To be discussed further 4. There was general interest in having a day of dyeing wool at Liziana. Diana will give us some dates to consider using her facility. Dyers will coordinate and bring supplies!! 5. Magazine subscriptions: maintain current subscriptions, no increase 6. Treasurers report was given: We have $3,676.58 in our Treasury as of December 31st 2020. As of May 16th, 2021 we have $3891.58. Last year while we were all hibernating, the biggest expense was $107 to establish this website. 7. Discussion of Rug Registry history. 8. Next meeting on June 20th at Liziana in Shelburne. Click HERE for directions. Oh my goodness. The Quabbies (and a few friends from the Vermont Rug Social group) met yesterday in Shelburne/Colrain at Diana O'Brien's home--on her deck out back. And what a time we had. It was so chilly and windy at first we thought we might have to meet inside, but as the sun moved westward we were all able to sit to the deck, with masks and layers of clothing, and hooked out there. The deck is a dream. The view! Well, you'll see below. At one point everyone went down to Diana's studio/store, in a building just a few feet down the mountain, and I saw quite a few loaded bags coming back up onto the deck shortly thereafter. Most of us followed the sun as it moved around. Some of us played dodge-ball to avoid black walnuts falling with loud cracks onto a small portion of the deck from a tree to one side. They sounded like miniature explosives going off whenever one landed on the wood. Luckily, no one got beaned and everyone went home in good health. Rugs are shown below. An absolutely gorgeous day, and all of us agreed it was wonderful to meet in person and not on Zoom. Wow, how the world has changed since I last posted. But we all know all about that. So I have no more to say about it, other than... FINALLY we had a meeting of the Quabbies at Greenleaves in Amherst last Sunday. Six of us came and we masked up and sat on the condo association's huge deck out back. Here are some photos from the meeting. Joann G took home the prize for Most Rugs Completed--you can see hers first. She was binding all of them (well actually, still working on one of them).  This wonderful rug is someone else's design but Joann heavily altered the border. I remember her saying that the color planning resulted from when she picked up a skein of wonderfully dyed Violet Jane yarn, brown, which she is now using to whip the edge of the rug (you can see the binding attached and waiting for whipping on the left of this photo). We all went crazy over the design and colors.  Another rug from Joann! I'm not quite remembering if this is her own design--I think it is--but I do remember that the rabbit is hooked entirely from hand spun rabbit hair yarn, which she picked up at the Cummington Fair. It's so soft, and the raised areas are great fun!  Joann's third rug. I believe she was still tweaking this one a bit and is soon to be working on the binding for it. I do not remember whose design this is.  I just loved this piece Penny is working on with its cheerful, colorful trees and the variety of yarns and wool that she is using. It's turning out great. I think that's a sari strip on the left. A little gem!  Chris S is beginning to work on this wonderfully silly hen piece. It's a great pattern! I'm liking the colors a lot also. Another gem.  This truly amazing piece is really coming along, designed and color planned (and of course, hooked) by Lynda F. You can see her sketches on the left. She was inspired by the artist Kehinde Wiley but the design is all her own. This is already a stunner and I cannot wait to see it done! Kathleen brought a piece she had only drawn onto linen the night before, a banner stating "No Justice, No Peace," but since he was only starting the hooking as we began the meeting, I did not get a photo. She has also finished (almost) quite an amazing rug but it was too large to bring to the meeting; hopefully we'll see it soon.
Our NEXT MEETING IS SEPTEMBER 20TH from 11-2 at Diana's Liziana Creations Studio in Shelburne. For details, please go HERE. Oh boy oh boy. Our group was recently able to purchase a substantial amount of wool suitable for rug hooking from the estate of Sherry Jones. Once the wool has been inventoried, weighed, and priced, we’ll choose an upcoming meeting and announce the sale well in advance. Plan to come and increase your stash. More details will follow. Really, who doesn’t need more wool??? By my count there are at least 18 tubs of wool in the photo below, and I think another 3 or 4 tubs are in the middle but hidden behind what's visible. That's a LOT of wool to choose from. The other two photos below are pictures of what we saw as we took the top off two of the tubs. It's looking good! 
We'll all begin with the same pattern, but we can choose to hook it any way/style/method/color we wish.  These are samples, but you can go wild with your version. They are only 8x8 inches or 18x12 inches (about the size of a license plate). Do them in your own style!
The recent Quabbin Rughooking Annual Hook-in, held in Shelburne Falls (Massachusetts) was a totally enjoyable day. The weather was great; the venue was excellent, there was plenty of parking and not too far to go to get all the hooking goodies into the hall. There was good food and great companionship. Oh, and lots of rug hooking too. A total of 25 rug makers came, ranging in age from 10 year old Iris to 99 year old Betty. Iris was there for the second year in a row! See a few of the rugs-in-progress below. There were two vendors (Liziana and The Dappled Ewe), door prizes galore (some people won several, and took home fabulous hand-dyed wools), and at lunch there was a throw-down of rugs in progress, a few of which are in the photos you'll see below. And was a rug show in the front hall. Very educational and inspirational. GROUP PROJECT IS GETTING STARTED We announced a group project for 2020--you do not have to be a member of this group to participate, however. That will be the subject of the next blog post. ATHA RUG REGISTRY--A SMART IDEA Diana O'Brien of Liziana Creations (one of the vendors and also one of our members) was handling the ATHA Rug Registry, a wonderful service which gathers all the practical details about a rug, takes a digital photo, and maintains that information in a permanent online register (hard copy as well). If a registered rug were ever to be damaged, stolen (oh no!) or sold and lost, a photo with a full history of its designer and creator would be forever available. Diana was able to register 19 rugs during the course of our hook-in. (NOTE: Quilters have been doing this for decades and there's a quilt registry with thousands of entries; it's been instrumental in both identifying old quilts and their history, and also in resolving cases where quilts have been stolen.) DATE FOR NEXT YEAR Mark your calendars for next year's Quabbin Hook-in Event: It will be held on September 19th, 2020 in Shelburne Falls, at the Shelburne-Buckland Community Center. Registration details and more information will follow next summer. |
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