Friday 6 January 2017

Then and Now - Rug Hooking in Canada

The Northumberland Rug Hookers are partnering with the Art Gallery of Northumberland to organize an exhibit of rugs. The dates have been established – March 9-April 30 – which is earlier than expected so we are beginning immediately to collect rugs and need your help. We require all types of rugs/hooked items to show the wide scope of traditional rug hooking (primitive, fine shaded, sculptured, Oriental, stained glass, pictorial, cushions, vests, purses, hats, stools, vintage rugs, whatever). We are striving to have all rugs collected by mid February



Since this will be a “curated” display, not all rugs will be accepted in the end as the curator will need to balance the display through factors such as size, colour, subject matter, design, space, etc. We are also in the process of sourcing some rugs beyond Northumberland to give added interest and entice rug hookers attending the Annual to visit the display and the downtown Cobourg area. Please deliver a maximum of two rugs you wish to be considered, to the regular Thursday hooking room at Halcyon Place in Cobourg, or bring to the January 30th  monthly meeting. Joan Tooke, Curator of the exhibit, will be our guest speaker at the meeting and will be able to provide you with more information. Here's a link to an Information sheet to be filled out and attached to each rug. The “inspiration” part of the form refers to a story you may wish noted for the rug – as you know, it’s often about the “story! Following are some details and more will be forthcoming:

TITLE of Exhibit at the Art Gallery of Northumberland: “Then and Now – Rug Hooking in Canada – A Canada 150 Exhibition of Rugs”
DATE: March 9-April 30, 2017
LOCATION: Art Gallery of Northumberland, Victoria Hall, Cobourg
CURATOR: Joan Tooke
ORGANIZERS: Dianne Algera, Iris Vermeulen
PROGRAM to include: display of current and vintage rugs; satellite rug displays throughout the County of Northumberland in Colborne (Art Gallery), Brighton (Library), and Campbellford (Library) – all to be confirmed; interactive activities with a rug hooking station in the Gallery; invitations for short workshops to local high school students enrolled in the arts program and Grade three students taking Pioneer Studies – to be arranged; docent tours/lectures on two Wednesdays during the exhibit – to be confirmed; March Break program for students to be organized by the Assistant Director.
IMPORTANT NOTE: The rugs we are collecting for the Gallery are to be “older” rugs and are separate from those that will be displayed at the Cobourg Community Centre for the Annual Conference.

Wednesday 4 January 2017

Printing on Foundation Fabric


Have you ever been faced with wanting to transfer a design to your foundation fabric (linen, burlap, etc), but didn't have the means to do so?  Many of the folks in our group are talented artists and can easily draw their pattern with a sharpie or crayon, but there are some of us who can't draw at all!  Lots of you use Red Dot for this kind of thing, but what if you don't have any?  or want an alternative method?

Did you know you can use your printer at home?  I found instructions on-line, and voilĂ , it works! You just need to know how to use word processing software (like MS Word or Pages for Mac).

In a nutshell, here's what I did:

- I found a design online that i liked, and it was free to use - no copyright to contend with.
- I pasted the image into a document in my word processing software and played around with the size to fit the page.
- I cut out a piece of freezer paper (bought at Foodland in Cobourg) to 8 1/2 x 11.
- I cut out a piece of foundation fabric (linen in my case) to be equal to or slightly smaller than the freezer paper (and stitched around the edges to stop fraying).
- I laid the shiny side of the freezer paper down on to the linen, and ironed it with medium heat - now the 2 pieces are fused together.
- I popped the freezer paper/linen into my printer with the linen on the bottom.
- I hit print - and out it came!

 Note that it will only work for designs that are no larger than whatever size paper your printer will take.  In most cases this is either 8 1/2 x 11, or 8 1/2 x 14 paper - so using this technique to produce a room-sized rug isn't possible.

This method isn't for everyone or every project - but it's worthwhile to have in your arsenal of tricks.

(Happy New Year, btw!)