Traditional Rug Hooking - "Shades of Georgia"

Now that Teri and Greg are married and I have given them their wedding gift rug, I can post it's story.
This begins in December of 2012 when George and I were in San Diego and saw Georgia O'Keefe's White Trumpet Flower in an art gallery there. I loved it and knew that someday I would like to hook it.

Taken from an internet image

Then in October 2013 I was enrolled in the Shades of Grey course taught by Majorie Diezer at the Ancaster OHCG school. The trumpet flower seemed like a perfect  image for this exercise. I did some preliminary research on how to get permission to do this and could find nothing about how to contact whoever now has the rights to Georgia O'Keefe's paintings. As it was intended for my own use I decided to go ahead with the project.

Rasta was of course helpful at every step.

This is the swatch I used to create the shading in the flower. There are 2 different plaid pieces, 2 other
pieces of textured wool, a scarf, a yarn, one piece of commercially dyed wool and 2 of hand dyed wool.
It is a 10 value swatch with 2 values from one of the plaids.

Still providing his valuable assistance

The flower itself completed.

At this point I had to decide whether to stay with the all grey tones or add in some colour. I had already decided that it would be a wedding gift for Teri and Greg and I intended to make it into a cushion as that would make it more versatile for them and most people I have given rugs to are reluctant to put them on the floor.

I decided to bring some colour in and this is the green swatch I created. An 8 value swatch , Blue Spruce,
dyed by Ingrid (Ragg Tyme), 2 plaids (one gave me two values) and a yarn. This gave me a 12 value swatch.

The finished piece, whipped with a combination of the grey and the green yarns used in the hooking.

I ran out of time in terms of making it into a cushion so indicated on the card to Greg and Teri that I will do that for them, or a hanging, if they prefer. Now I have to find out how to get permission to show it at the OHCG Annual next spring. My first step will be contacting the gallery where I first saw the picture.

If Rasta is not on the hooking or under the hoop playing with a dangling piece of wool,
he's in the bag with the rest of the hooking supplies.

For a totally different update: the vegetable garden is producing at an amazing rate. I have been eating lettuce and kale since early June but now I also have snap peas (none of them make it into the house however), 2 kinds of beans (I've frozen some already), zucchini, basil, mint, stavia, swiss chard and cherry tomatoes (red and yellow).

A rather large zucchini and green and purple beans.