Cock-in-Blue

(That should be read sort of like cock-a-doodle-doo.)

I briefly mentioned starting this project at the beginning of last month.

Work on it was delayed for a bit when I couldn't find the hook. There are various places I could have set it in the living room where I work, but I didn't see it in any of those.

Then it occurred to me while in the shower or falling asleep or while driving where it must be...in the drawer of the coffee table where I keep pens, remotes, spare spindles and other little objects that should remain handy but out of sight.

So the next time I had some time to work on it, I pulled out the bag of supplies, got settled in, opened the drawer to pull out the hook and...nothing. It wasn't there. Then I was truly puzzled, because I was so sure it was going to be there!

A few days (or more) later, getting frustrated because I still hadn't found it and it still hadn't just appeared and being positive it hadn't left the room, I looked a little more thoroughly. And where did I find it? In the ziplock bag with the rest of the supplies! I didn't find it earlier because I had put it in the smaller bag with all of the wool strips instead of the main bag with the canvas and it got lost in the wool. A happy ending but it felt like a pretty needless delay.

In any case, I kept good track of the tool after that and made steady progress on my hooked rug:

The piece is small (9.25"x7.5") and I am happy with it. I considered adding a coloured border because I have more wool strips from the kit that I could use, but I think I will leave it alone.

I also am considering giving it a soak and "blocking" it. (I.e. laying it flat to dry.) I'm pretty sure I put the loops too close together when I started (in the chicken body) and the piece wants to buckle because of it. I've never blocked a rug hook before but it's seems that anything made from wool would probably benefit from it. And I don't think it can hurt.

When I first opened the kit, I didn't like that there were different blue fabrics included. I thought it was a sign of a cheap kit or shoddy work by the store. But of course, the various blues are exactly what you need to liven up the background and keep it from being completely flat. I sometimes controlled what blue I was going to use next, but most of it was pretty random. Now I wish there had been some variety of browns for the rooster body! :)

Here is the back.

You can see some white space in the blue background but nothing in the rooster. I think the white space is there when you don't overcrowd the canvas. You can also see more clearly that I did one border row all the way around to even out the line of the edges and give it a nice finish.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it. It's common to sew them into pillows but it's pretty small and how much space do I have for more pillows? I'm also considering framing it somehow (but how much space do I have on my walls!?) I'll keep pondering it.

While I ponder what my next rug hook may be...I enjoyed the process and am dreaming of larger projects that could actually serve as rugs.

Shake a tail feather!