Miscellaneous November items

At a rug hooking friends I was introduced to a couple of lovely black labs;

Bosco (the big one) and Fiver (the puppy) were very well behaved and after enthusiastic greetings were happy to sleep in the sun.

We were colour planning a rug which resulted in piles of discarded wool tossed on the floor. When Bosco moved, Fiver decided that it would make a great dog bed.

I have been assigned an Art Nouveau piece to teach, next year, for the McGown  accreditation. It has to be hooked as a monochromatic. I have too many ideas and don't know which one to pursue so  I traced the pattern and redrew wedges of it onto backing to use as experiments/samples.
The first one is hooked in denim

The five pairs of blue jeans (from the Port Rowan thrift store) that constitute my denim "swatch".

The end result. The thing to the right is the tape I used to take all the shreddy bits off it.

I didn't enjoy hooking with denim although I really like the final result.
Pros: jeans are cheap and easy to come by (4 of these pairs were free as they weren't in good enough condition for the thrift store to sell, but the back of the legs gives the best denim as it is least warn). They are durable and the rug can be washed.
Cons: Jeans now are made a little stretchy so they are woven on the bias which results in them shedding little pieces while they are being hooked in. They don't have as nice a feel as wool and they are tougher to pull through the backing.

The second one is hooked using a swatch

The blue swatch on the background I used.

Although Art Nouveau usually has an outline I chose not to as the bright swatch stood out well against the navy background.

This one was fun and hooked up quickly although did take some thought to make sure it was clear which part of the elements were on top and which were behind.

Lastly, a couple of sky shots. I really do get to see some magnificent skies here.