Archives 2012 meetings

April Meeting

Well, its lovely to be back and writing this page again. We will be filling in the missing rugs from the last few months over the next month or so.

There were some beautiful rugs at the meeting.. what  a talented group…

We are just finishing the bunting ready to hang in the textile gallery at the end of May. Here is a sample of some of the nearly complete ones. Are we the first group to make  bunting using rug making techniques.. hooked, proddy and one locker hooked piece so far… ????

 

Following our award from the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee fund (managed by Bradford District community Fund) here is the flyer that we will be using to advertise the Bunting.

 

Three pretty proddy rugs found their way to our meeting, one is off to Scotland, thus the heathery tones, one is destined for a bedroom, and the third is traditional colours.

 

 

One member had made a small Easter picture in memory of her Late Mother.

 

And finally, a few experiments in felted jewellery from recycled sweaters,  using rag rug techniques… we are planning on a workshop making this jewellery at the June meeting, so group start saving all your cast off chunky jewels and old sweaters…

We are also going to have a practise making them at Cober Hill, so watch out for more pictures of our annual rag rug retreat…

May meeting and Cober Hill

Well, what a couple of months. A lovely weekend away rugging at Cober Hill, and progress on the individual elements of the bunting for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, and then the news that we had been awarded one of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Community Grants, which has enabled us to produce and circulate flyers advertising the bunting we made, and also support our members demonstrating rug making at the Museum in weekends till the end of June. I had a lovely day demonstrating making rag wreaths on Tuesday, lots of people to see me and the other ruggers and I  have a lovely image of a child visiting us using one of the rugs as a grass field to graze the Museums flock of farm play animals.

We have received lots of compliments on the bunting as well. So a big thank you to all the contributors.

Please support the museum and go and see the bunting as well.

This is a snapshot of the bunting in progress…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So back to Cober hill. Everybody brought a rug to work on , and we also had a go at making jewellery using  rolls or caterpillars of wool felt, combining them with beads as well.    Great for updating worn old bead jewellery. We are also going to make them as a short workshop at the June meeting.

And here is some I have made since Cober Hill.

On the theme of jewellry, some beautiful flowers also emerged over the weekend.. and one was given to one of the staff at Cober |Hill.

 

 

 

A couple of photos of our group working on their rugs…

 

 

 

and some of the rugs in progress as well…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then we came back to a busy May meeting, and here are some of the rugs from the show and tell. It never ceases to amaze me how inventive rug makers are,   and there is always a story behind each rug. I wish I had hours to tell each rugs story but time is always limited.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

June /July meeting 

 

A few photos of the bunting in position at the Industrial museum, and below them  photos of the jewellery we started at the workshop in June.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We had on display two books about the history of the group, and extra photos of how we made the bunting in the third book. The cardboard triangle was the shape we all copied to get our bunting all the same size.

 

 

 

The panel in this picture describes our Queens Diamond Jubilee award, and includes our flyer and some photos of the bunting suspended outside the museum. If the weather had been clement it would have been lovely to display the bunting outside.

 

 

Here are the necklaces we made in June.. some underway. The technique of rolling flat felted strips is an old rug making technique, the “Beads” can also be sewn together to create flat chair pads etc.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We all enjoyed the freedom of using a variety of materials and colours for these necklaces, and some of the group arrived with amazing bead stashes to incorporate, so its a good way of using up all those hoards…

 

 

 

 

This is the finished braided rug that we will be shown how to make in September, they take a long time and a lot of patience… You also need braiding cones to make a rug like this.

If you want to make something smaller then maybe the chair pad below is an alternative while learning the same techniques. …

 

 

 

And finally, the maker of these sheep is giving them to a young relative, we loved the clouds and landscape as well as the variety of sheep.

 

 

 

September meeting

A lovely meeting with a demonstration of braiding from Sue, who guided us clearly through the stages and pitfalls of braiding. She had made samples to help demonstrate the various stages of making the rug which were much appreciated. At the end of the talk quite a few of the ruggers were enthusiastically planning to make a braided rug of their own.

 

I was lucky to acquire a few issues of an Australian magazine called Australian Homespun.

In No 19 I found a lovely article by Val McCallum about rug making and its history in that country, and she included instructions for crocheting lovely cotton rugs. I had great fun tearing and knotting huge balls of cotton strip, and then crocheting wiht a big hook. If anybody can tell me a web page for her, I will gladly include it here.

This is the result.. it now sits on our bathroom floor. These rugs can be washed easily.

 

October meeting

A lovely meeting, and we were pleased to see better attendance. It makes all the work running the group worthwhile.

Our project for this month was to start thinking about our annual Christmas exchange. This year its making a 6 by 4 inch postcard or making a small card using a rugging technique.

 

These are examples of the postcards.

For those who want something different here are a few more ideas, gathered from other Christmas cards received over the years.

 

There was a good range of well made rugs this month.. animals to the fore…

and finally a lion..remeber the Frost lions?

 

In addition we were shown two lovely proddy rugs.

and

We have been donated a lovely vintage hessian pattern. So far we have been unable to trace the manufacturer, this sheet has the instructions stapled in the corner.. but no manufacturer. Interestingly it was for a punch needle wool rug not hooked as I originally thought. If anybody knows more about this hessian we would love to hear from you via the contact page.

 

November  

 

A busy meeting this month with good attendance. We are busy making hooked postcards for the Christmas exchange, and also worked on making the felted pebbles/stones for the group to bring together later next year. This is the number we have made so far. We had lots of suggestions of adding needle felt and embroidery/ buttons/ beads etc so it will be interesting to see what arrives. Some of the group don’t crochet, so for them there is also a knitted pattern. The original idea came from a design on Ravelry by Rockpool Candy, although we have made our own patterns.

The ones I have made so far sit on my windowsill and look beautiful against the autumn leaves. I tried piling them on top of one another in imitation of  Andy Goldsworthys stones.

 

 

 

 

We also have a traditional proddy rug inspired by pebbles, the maker now has short sleeves to their top!

Maybe somebody in the group will also make a hooked pebble rug or a penny rug  in muted colours this could be exciting.

 

 

 

 

This large floor hooked rug was inspired by Clarice Cliffe designs

 

 

 

 

This is a detail from it.

 

 

 

Another proddy rug  took its inspiration from the traditional diamond, but with a bit of a twist.

 

 

More complex, and still with  a geometric theme, the two rugs started at the Reeth Retreat in the Mandala workshop taught by Heather  Ritchie are now complete.

 

December meeting

A lovely meeting, a n interesting talk by Veronica about the Tighr conference in Strathalbyn, Australia, which she and Diane attended.

There is a pretty full account of the whole event on Gene Shephard’s blog

The photos represent some of the workshops   at the conference.

 

 

 

 

As I have done some basket coiling I was particularly interested in the small red and blue coil above, and we were told  that  Judy Stephens incorporates these coils into her hooked work inspired by Aboriginal art. Inspirational.

In addition each participant at the conference exchanged a small hooked postcard..this was the one Veronica received. It was made by Masako Shinomiye, and is called “The Pole Star and the Great Bear”

and this is the reverse: 

 

By coincidence we too have been making Postcards to exchange at our Christmas meeting. Initially there was a certain amount of nervousness about making them at that scale, but the have worked out really well. There is one more to add in January.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Onto larger rugs, two at the meeting, a lovely proddy rug with some interesting strong blue lines made by prodding  close together:

 

And a rug made on a stiff canvas foundation using odd balls of rug and knitting wool. It is all stitched in Long legged cross stitch.

 

 

and finally: I had a lovely day in Mirfield recently when I went to collect some rug tools that were bought on ebay. Here they are:

 

 

The three prodders were used with blanket offcuts from the local Mill, JH Walker at Holme Bank,  and sacking from the family’s off licence. The 1950s rugs covered the floor.. one along the top, three across the middle and also one at the bottom. The two rug hooks are older and belonged to Grandfather, who had been born in the 1860s, so they are probably about turn of the century.They are big, about six inches long, much bigger than modern hooks.  My thanks to Mr Milner for telling me all this history.

 

And finally Seasons Greetings to you all.