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Take time to smell the sunflower!

Will you be at Mountainair’s Sunflower Festival Saturday?

 

Dog with hooked sunflower wall hangings.
Bowyn will be sad if he doesn’t get to meet you at Saturday’s Sunflower Festival.

 

Unfortunately, last weekend’s textile art sale in Santa Fe was a bit of a logistical bust. But is it really a loss when you spend time hanging with a bunch of other talented fiber artists here in New Mexico or anywhere. NO! Fortunately, Cathy, my partner in crime, and I have the Sunflower Festival in just a few days. It’s always a fun time what with the arts, the music, the food… And Mountainair is a cool, little mountain town, very BIG sky country.

As you can see, I’m ready for the Sunflower Festival. Sunflowers are truly one of my favorite flowers, and if you’ve been following me for at least a year, you know that I like to hook some version of them annually. This year I went small, three wall hangings. And instead of keeping it all t-shirt all the time, I mixed it up. Each one has some amount of t-shirt, bed sheet, wool strips, and wool yarn. The variegated backgrounds were dyed by my own little hands during my “retreat week” back in June. Oh, and I included itty-bitty glass seed beads in the – what else? – sunflower seed heads!

Sunflower wall hanging.
Sunflower wall hanging. (Old t-shirts and bed sheets; wool strips and yarn; glass seed beads.)

It’s the end of summer here in New Mexico, and while the sunflowers are blooming and it’s still warm, you can see that fall’s on its way. Kids have been in school a couple of weeks. (Being from the East Coast, that’s still weird for me.) Already I’ve spied some turning leaves here and there. The Hatch chiles are roasting in the grocery store parking lots. That heavenly aroma!

Fall is a looking forward time for me. How to change up the house decor – pumpkins and candles, of course. The holidays! We just rented a house for a week’s vacation in Arizona (which lets us be self-sufficient in this unnecessarily continued time of Covid, but I digress). New rugs and other textile projects. Workshops.

On that workshop note, I want to remind everyone that In the Studio Workshop Week 3 will be here in two months. Less than that, actually. I’ll be teaching two sessions of Hooking with T-Shirts. The first will be Saturday, October 23. There are a few places still open in each class, so if you’re interested, email me at Laura@highonhooking.com. Some workshops are full but may have a waiting list available. Others still have room. Just contact the teacher of the class you’re interested in.

Lastly, a gentle reminder. The rug hooking week at Sauder Village just wrapped up. Trolling Facebook, I’ve seen wonderful photos of the gorgeous rugs that were on display. One thing, though, that I noticed about many of the posts was the lack of attribution. We need to remember that when we post pics of others’ artwork, we need to give the artists their due and provide their names. An easy way to get that info is to take a quick pic of the little card that’s invariably right next to or just below the rug, painting, quilt, or other piece of art you’re photographing. Then you’ll have everything together when you go to share the art porn.

 

Flyer for another one of the August in-person events.

 

As summer winds down here in the northern hemisphere, what plans are you making in order to really appreciate and enjoy the autumn? Maybe you’ll head out to Mountainair!

 

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Sunflowers – hopefully they’re a neutral subject

SUNFLOWERS

Hooked Sunflower Rug used as a bench cover
“Melinda’s Rug” shown as a bench cover. It was hooked using recycled t-shirts.

I decided to talk sunflowers , mostly because I’m pretty sick of all the negativity surrounding us today. And yet…I bet there are folks out there that can find something disapproving about one of my favorite flowers. Too bad! Because, as I will remind you all, I AM THE BOSS OF MY RUGS. AND MY BLOG.

Now that that’s off my chest, I can go on. Sunflowers are starting to bloom here in New Mexico. The garden varieties and the ones that I find on my walks in the Bosque, the woods running along the currently almost non-existent Rio Grande River here in Albuquerque. Sorry! I’ll try to get back to being positive.

New Mexican Sunflower
This is the first sunflower that greeted the kid and me as we crossed over the Texas border into New Mexico five years ago last week.

I recently finished “Melinda’s Rug,” and many of you have seen it on my social media accounts. It’s pretty in pastels. Just the colors that Melinda loves, particularly the turquoises. (An aside: It’s a housewarming present for the house she and Gary build over two years ago. I’m a tad tardy.)

But it’s not the first “sunflower” rug that I’ve hooked. In fact, I like to make at least one per year. And I always do one, a mug rug, for the silent auction at Mountainair’s Sunflowers Festival. Which will not be taking place this August. Thank you, Coronacootie. 🙁

I decided to take a look back and see the progression of this series of mine.

BTW: I’m not a botanist. So don’t hold me to a strict definition of sunflowers.

Round sunflower hooked rug
I’m pretty sure this is the first sunflower rug I hooked. It says 2013, but I think it’s older, that that’s when I took a photo to get ready to sell it. Some lady told me that I should’ve put elastic around the edge so it could be used as a toilet top cover. That was after she told me how she used to hook. In the 70s. I really wanted to tell her a few things…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sunflower hooked rug
After blue I decided to try red for a background. Sure, they were simplistic. but they sold! Again, recycled t-shirts.
Sunflower hooked rug
Okay, this one looks more like the sun itself. But experimentation is good. Especially in a little 6×6 mat. Also t-shirt.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sunflower hooked rug
Mug rugs make for excellent palates to explore different colors and textures! This one is one of my favorites. I like the fall colors. It includes wool strips, silk sari yarn, and wool yarn.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sunflower hooked ruggggg
It’s another mostly wool sunflower rug. With a little silk sari yarn hooked in too. Silk sari yarn is perhaps my most favorite thing to hook. I seem to recall that there was a little velvet involved in this one too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dog on sunflower hooked rug
I went back to recycled t-shirts for this table runner/bench cover. Tynan liked it. I really loved the green background! So did customers. 🙂

 

 

Sunflower hooked rugs
I liked the green t-shirts so much that I went for it again the next year.

 

 

 

 

Sunflower hooked rug
Last fall, inspired by a t-shirt of mine that I’d been hoarding for years, I hooked another mug rug experiment. Loved it so much, after one other little guy with similar colors, I hooked “Melinda’s Rug.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So, I hoped you enjoyed the “Sunflower Tour” as much as me. But maybe you’re a tulip person. Or you prefer zinnias. I’ve done those flowers too, but not like the sunflowers. They’re special. To me, at least. But if you’ve got examples of other flowers, please share them on our Facebook page. We love seeing beautiful things, no matter what they may be.

Till next week, please stay healthy. And positive. I know it’s hard these days. It can be depressing. But the country and world have gone through worse. Most of all, remember to be kind to the other folks out there. We’re all in it together.

 

 

BTW: If you have any interest in High on Hooking’s inaugural Zoom workshop Hooking With and beyond the Wool on August 19, it’s almost full. See details here.

 

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New items in our Etsy shop

 

Tynan (dog) with hooked rugs.
Tynan brings you our newest items. All will be loaded into our Etsy shop starting today. Address of the shop: https://www.etsy.com/shop/HighonHooking.
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River cruising in Bordeaux – Nature

Bordeaux river cruise
This is a bridge in Bordeaux, clearly an OLD bridge. I include it under the NATURE category, because the Garonne River is a tidal river. For our boat to go under that bridge, the captain had to have exquisite timing. At low tide.

 

If you’re a regular reader, then you know that Tom and I took our first really GOOD vacation in ten years in early August. No kid, not even the dog. (Don’t feel bad for Tynan; he had himself a fine time at a guild mate’s “doggie spa.”) Amazingly, neither of us had even been on a plane in five years – when we were scouting out Albuquerque before our move here in 2015. If you consider that this year we celebrated 25 years of marriage, you can see why it was time. So, we headed to Bordeaux, yes, the one in France, and boarded a Viking long boat for a wine cruise. And, yes, it met every expectation that we had.

 

Boat in Bordeaux
This is the clearance the boat had emerging from under the bridge in Bordeaux on our way to Cadillac. Thank goodness for a LOW tide.

We saw all kinds of things: vineyards, a big city (Bordeaux), tiny villages, 18th century forts,sculptures, chateaux, and so on. Got lots of pics to share. So many that I blew out my new Dropbox. Guess I have to pare down some. I don’t want to bore anyone, so I’ll post them according to themes. This week we’ll try NATURE.

Ultimately, we cruised along three different rivers near Bordeaux that week. Two met up at at the Gironde estuary not far from the Atlantic coast. Sadly, there were some, but not many, sea and river birds. I never got a good answer as to why that was given the estuary, but it might have something to do with the region’s agricultural practices.

 

Being in a world-famous wine region, of course, we toured several wineries. There was one which specialized in Sauternes wines – unfortunately, not my favorite, too sweet – but it was beautiful.

Bordeaux wine cruise
A wine chateau in the Sauternes wine region.

 

Bordeaux river cruise
Madame La Dinde, a resident of the Sauternes region.

 

Mind you, chateaux in the Bordeaux area are not at all like those in the Loire valley. While those are about opulence and architecture, the ones in Bordeaux are more about commerce and the making and selling of wine. Often, there’s not a lot going on inside other than rooms for weddings,banquets, and wine tastings. These are real working farms and wineries. To that affect, see who we found at the one in Sauternes.

 

 

Karen Miller of Karen D. Miller Studio likes to post cool close-ups of leaves and trees and things. I managed to get a couple of tree pics for her.

 

For you, Karen!
Bordeaux river cruise
I knew you’d love this one!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And always, everywhere, things were growing!

Bordeaux river cruise
Colorful pots line the narrow streets of the little port town of Cadillac.
Bordeaux river cruise
More gardens in the medieval town of Saint-Emilion. (My favorite place of the whole trip!)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bordeaux river cruise
Those are some very old vines.

 

Bordeaux river cruise
Espalier-trained pear trees. Yum!
Bordeaux river cruise
Les raisins étaient partout! Just everywhere as grapes should be in wine country world.

But we didn’t have to be on land to enjoy nature’s bounty.

There was the captain of the Forseti. That was the name of our river boat.

Bordeaux river cruise
Don’t ask me his name. He was Greek. He had an accent. Isn’t that enough?

 

Bordeaux river cruise
Is that not a picture-perfect sunset over the estuary off the Médoc wine region?

Damn, I can get a bunch of posts out of this trip. Next time we’ll talk old buildings or something. I mean, we saw the ruins of a castle from the Middle Ages. You don’t see that every day in New Mexico. Till then, Tynan brings you this week’s rug on the frame.

Tynan presents to you my new “thistle” rug. I started it last week during the workshop that Sharon Smith presented to the Adobe Wool Arts Guild here in Albuquerque. What’s on your frame???

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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