~ Rug Hooking for Dummies ~

....well, not exactly FOR dummies ~ but

rug hooking Dummy Boards for sure :)

HOWDY Folks!

what is a dummy board you may ask yourself?

well, I have an answer for you...

{of course I do hehe}

a dummy board is simply a wooden board 

onto which a painted scene, person or animal was applied.

 {{{{click *HERE*  for a brief historical synopsis}}}}

 SO

I have been wanting to make a few of my own dummy boards

 after seeing Kathy Clark's beautiful hooked versions *HERE*

I wanted to make mine super simple and primitively-folky...so what else is new?

and I came up with a simple flower basket design reminiscent 

of the earlier hooked rugs

that I love the most.

 

so I started with this ~

a basic outline for a basket-shape, then went from there...

not really having a complete picture in my head yet, I just hooked using scraps in my worm pile{s}

and hooked in that now popular 'higgledy-piggledy' fashion,

which ~ if you've read my postings before,

 or are familiar with how I hook, 

I use the term 'wonky' for my uneven, never-straight & high/low loops.

and...so be it.

**in the current issue of Rug Hooking magazine 

there is an excellent article written by  Nancy Z. Parcels on this very technique ~ {a.k.a. 'antigodlin'}

I'll call it the 'Hig-Pig' technique most likely from here out though!

you'll see the base of my basket, 

some of the black background and fill-in between flowers are hooked hig/pig.

while the flowers, stems and upper portion of the basket are hooked in rows.

and by rows, I mean in my 'wonky' high/low/uneven loops, 

although they are  still standing in little rows,

~ for me, & so-to-speak. 

So i finished hooking the entire thing, blocked it and let it dry,

 then trimmed the linen edges away to within 1" of the last hooked border-row.

I turned the linen edge to the back and used tacky-glue to hold them down....

{I use Aleene's Tacky Glue ~ acid free, dries clear & flexible, avail. everywhere...}

 a close up of my loops...

so then off to the woodshop I went,

paper pattern in hand and armed with directions for my woodsmith-husband...

and in a jiffy my hubby & Chris 

{our left/right hand & much-appreciated wood-shop helper} 

had the wooden cut out for me to mount my project onto....then we painted the edges black and  attached a little wooden stand to the bottom/back so it will stand upright.

TaDa!  

don't you love it? 

I do....

~ here it is outside in daylight:

and here it is in various settings in the farmhouse ~

 I'm planning on making different dummy board designs,

... and offering patterns and the wooden backs for them.

I have so many things in my head that I just can't sleep anymore ~

we'll blame that partially on creativity, the other part will surely be blamed on menopause!

UGH.

well, at least the weather has cooled,

and although muggy ~ I feel like I can breathe a bit again.

plus with it being cooler, I'm happy to get back to my wools!

I'll be updating my 2017 schedule for workshops, classes & events ~

....keep an eye on my sidebar for the changing schedule.

AND Stay tuned for some super-exciting news!!!!

~ Blessings from the Farm ~

 Lori