Water sports and a rug repair.

Finally summer has arrived and the sailboat racing has started. The weather has been varied and, often, extreme. Either too much wind (a couple of cancellations due to this) or not enough (and the racing is painfully slow.)

One night it was quite calm, reflections on the water, and Dave was able to get a few shots on my camera (I was on the helm).

 

On windy nights there is no chance for photography.

A recent Monday Night Crew photo--- myself, Rick, Dave and Gord. (taken by Dave)

Had to include the boat. We usually also have Fiona and sometimes Fred and/or Dave. (Photo by Dave)

I found that I was able to get the kayak into the new car and

actually had better visibility out of the passenger window than I had with the Prius.

Calm, muddy water

and a slight breeze meant that it was very comfortable for a leisurely kayak on Black Creek.

As usual, there was an abundance

of turtles, different types and sizes, all

quite happy to share the same log. All sliding off into the water with some prearranged signal when I got too near.

Living his best life and really didn't want to be disturbed.

I kayaked down as far as the Yacht Club, past the huge mansions and tiny cottages, past the huge powerboats and little runabouts. Not many people out on the water on a Monday, I was just passed by 2 other kayakers and a couple of power boats.

Not a lot of birdlife ...no herons (though one flew over), some geese and ducks and this Kingbird who

 

repeatedly leapt into the air to snatch a bug and then returned to his stump.

The logs that had been vacated when I kayaked to close on the way down, were full again on the way back.

A customer bought a damaged rug into the Woodhouse Gallery and asked if I could repair it. I have done some minor rug repairs before so decided to give it a go. One section of the edge was ripped and the binding had come away from the rug. The burlap was unravelling in that spot.

 

First I took all the old rug binding off. This took longer than any other step in the process.

Then I pulled out some rows of hooking until I reached stable burlap.

Then I used fabric glue and stabilized the worst areas before

attaching new rug tape to the front.

I then rolled the burlap and attached the rug tape to the back.

I was loath to cut the burlap so, unfortunately, some areas were thicker than others.

I had cut off the rug hookers stitched initials and now sewed them back on.

Completed and back to the gallery to be picked up.

Grandchild Updates:

River loves the Quail from Mike's first hatching.

 

Cigi graduated from Preschool.

Looks more mature in this one.

Final photo - Amaryllis are not just for Christmas!

J.J. Ruggers Colour Workshop

 J.J. Ruggers, the Paris rug hooking guild that I belong to, meets 10 months of the year on a Saturday. Sometimes we just get together for the day and hook and other times we have events or workshops. This month, Pat Lawson, one of our members, gave a presentation on Colour Theory. Pat's career was in the lighting industry so understanding colour and how we see colour came naturally out of her work life and into her hooking life. Back when we were all just starting to hook she was using colour language that I am, now, just beginning to understand. 

Prior to the workshop Pat sent out an e-mail with a link to some colour acuity tests as all of us see colour differently. The link was to colorlitelens.com, a website that is selling glasses but has some interesting online tests. Doing those tests confirmed my green/blue colour blindness and  measured the effectiveness of the blue and green cones in my retina.

Pat doesn't do anything by half, she came loaded with a slide show, resources and tons of information.

 Without getting too "sciency" we learned how the eye works and how colour is perceived.

We are all familiar with the traditional colour wheel (I have just finished hooking one) with Red, Blue and Yellow as the primary colours, Green, Orange and Purple are secondary, and so on. Pat introduced us to the other colour wheels that have been formulated and discussed which are more useful for our work.

Although she was sticking to colour theory, every now and then we did veer off into how these principles impacted our struggles with colour in our rugs.

To finish off, Pat handed out some coloured papers and we played with some effects and phenomena.

For our first exercise we cut and positioned our papers like this, stared at the orange line for 15 seconds and then gradually dragged the red paper to the left. Miraculously a line of red appeared on the right hand side of the orange and it bled to the left as the red paper moved away. Freaky!

Then we created the impression of transparency by placement of coloured papers.

Finally we cut a strip of red in half and laid it on 2 different colours to see how the colour around it impacts our perception of a colour.

More colours between, fools the eye even more.

After our end of year pot luck lunch, Pam Watkins gave a presentation on colours as they relate to fashion. Pam used to "do" peoples colours, designating them Spring, Summer, Winter or Fall and this would help determine which colours look best on them. I seem to remember, Pam doing this for our little Monday Night hooking group and I was a Winter.

That was our Colourful end of year meeting. The group will continue to meet in a park in Paris but I will probably not attend again until September. 

Mohawk Rug School

 It is the second week in June and I am blogging about something that happened the last week in May. Life has been taken up with gardening, sailing and just, well, life.

I signed up for a rug school that was held at Mohawk College in Hamilton. Because of the location I was able to be a "day student" that helped keep the cost down as I commuted in each day. I took the Monochromatic/Achromatic Course taught by Benita Watford Raleigh

Monochromatic: Having one colour in different values

Achromatic: Having no colour - black, grey, white.

I took with me the Carolyn Stitch "Winter Fox" pattern that I had started at the Southern McGown workshop last year, as I intended for it to be an Arctic Fox, all in greys.

I took a variety of grey wools and Benita helped me create a swatch with values from pale to dark grey.

 

This was my progress after the first day.

This after the second day, the fox, the Achromatic part of the project, was complete

 As I was going home each evening I was able to bring materials from my stash so I had greens for the trees, mottled greys and purples for the snow but wasn't sure about the sky. Luckily Ingrid, of Ragg Tyme Studios had a store at the venue and I was able to by a beautiful dip dye piece of dark blue and purple wool for the sky.

 

After the third day. Now I have to set him aside until I finish the two other projects I am working on. Then I can get back to him.

Pam was in the class and she completed the piece that she designed.

Sue was also working on her own design.

Suzanne Chaddock was working on this Celtic Rabbit adapted, with permission, from a wood burning.

Others in the class were hooking a paisley and a variety of geometrics.

We had a "throw down" at the end of classes on Thursday so were able to see the rugs in progress from the other classes.

 

An open class, a Rosemaling class and a William Morris class.

Its been a cool, wet spring and Rick and I only got one "recreational sail" in before

the race season began.

Final photo - portrait of the little critter who lives under my front porch.