While my back recuperates from my week away…I’ve done quite a bit of hooking on Hygieia. I’ve been working on what I know… to start…that is the face and head piece.. (ha ha 3rd face I’ve done…I’m hardly an expert) and at the same time contemplating how I will deal with her gown and the ribbons.
I kept the close up photo of Hygieia’s face, and Adele beside me as I worked…and referred to them both constantly. Some aspects of the wool don’t translate accurately from the painting. For example…in every picture of Hygieia, her lips actually turn down…but although she looks serious, she doesn’t look angry..this didn’t work however with the wool. Any downturn of the black line between her lips, and she immediately looked grumpy so I reshaped the lips. The eyebrows were another area. Although in the paintings she has much thicker ones, the minute a second line of wool is added, she scowls, so I just use 1 row.
Her nose is different from the others I’ve done..straight on…and looking up at it from slightly below. Keeping it from looking like a pig’s nose, and getting the nostrils right were a challenge. It took three tries for the nostrils. first I did them in black and they were too prominent…then I tried the light grey outline colour, and they disappeared…finally I used a medium grey ….just right.
The sweep under the eye on the right got too high…and doesn’t match the other side…so
I pulled that part back and fiddled with the lines so they better matched the other side.
Her chin has a dip on the right side which I don’t like…and I will smooth that out later.
The decorations in her head piece are cat’s paws done with pancake dyed yellow so there is lots of colour variation in each small circle.
For her headpiece, I’m using a variety of colours to give the appearance of black….there is actually no black in it…very dark navy, purple, a dark brown/black plaid, and lots of black watch plaid. (thanks to Margaret Kennedy for showing me this technique) The result is a colour that vibrates rather than being static.
There is quite a wide discrepancy in the headpiece decorations in the various versions I have looked at. I decided to leave many out, and let the “black” be the focal point there…it seems to me to anchor the top of the piece and will be good with so much colour to go underneath in the gown and ribbons.
..And now back to Trent. Each evening there was an event of some sort. On Monday it was a trunk sale….held in the parking lot of Lady Eaton college…everyone was invited to bring any craft related item they no longer wanted
Rug hookers are great bargain hunters and are addicted to fiber so it shouldn’t have been surprising to see the wild frenzy of buying as if wool was a rare commodity!
There were lots of old patterns
Linda’s wools were snapped up rapidly
Specialty yarns were scooped up for that special effect….or whipping…..or hooking…or…
Hedore…(the only male hooker at the camp) is an amazing hooker using nylons exclusively. He brought his left overs to the trunk sale. I had to restrain myself here…They were so beautiful I almost convinced myself to hook with nylons again.
Luise had a wonderful selection of tatted work for sale.
Our fearless co-director…Mary Janet…. promised to be a ‘perfect angel’ this year. The evening concluded with ice cream cones for all.