One of my favourite summer activities is watching the Tour de France while hooking. The race is exciting…but Oh…those chateaus and the French countryside are breath taking! Since it’s on from 8 til 11:30 each morning for 3 weeks…I get quite a bit of hooking accomplished. 

This summer’s project is my footstool. When I’m hooking padula flowers, it’s fun to try different effects to make them colourful and interesting. There were 4 flowers with circle centres, and I tried 3 different ways to hook them.

This one is the most straightforward…just a cat’s paw.

I tried a pin wheel effect for this one.

This is my favourite….filling it in by halves, then quarters, then eighths. I first used this in my  Fat Cat Rug, and did a teeny version here.

All the flowers had a few false starts, but this rose type one caused me the most difficulty.

I started with something I can’t even remember now, and ripped it out, then thought I’d use the pale yellow, turquoise, and outline it with a turquoise/purple wool that I liked, but I decided that it didn’t work to introduce a whole new colour (purple).

Then I tried the pale yellow with turquoise outlining, but it was overshadowed but the other much more vibrant flowers. I tried a sort of internal lighter turquoise petal in the large petals, and ripped that out too.

This is what I ended up with…the variety of 4 turquoises, with it primarily the light shade. It is my least favourite of the 5 flowers, but I like how it looks with the others.

For the scroll, I dyed a huge long piece of wool using the dump dye method. If I had done it corrctly, I would have first hooked 1/2 of a scroll section, removed the strip, then used a piece of wool that long to dye. I’m getting down on my supply of natural Dorr at the moment, so I used what I had, which wasn’t quite long enough. This meant I had to try a variety of methods to get a look I liked, that I could replicate in each section…..I finally settled on starting with the light end at the scroll part, working toward the centre, then starting where it ended with a dark end on both side until it met in the middle. I took a series of pictures as I went along…too bad I can’t use them like a “flip cartoon ” so it could be hooked in front of your eyes!

The first time I tried, I started in the middle, worked toward the scroll, then ended with some pure lime green…..but it was too light, and not enough character in the solid coloured wool. (I seldom like solid wool now, and once that as all I used. Now I like it blotchy)

Still experimenting…

Now I’ve got it figured out…and the top left scroll will come out.

There…the scrolls and outline are complete. Now how to fill it in??

I want some contrast in the middle…

The scroll’s done. Now I’m working on those tiny turquoise flowers..it’s fiddley hooking aro
und them! The sides will be hit and miss stripes using all the wool from the top. I don’t have a lot left of some of it…so I’ll have to divide it in 4, so I have the same amounts for each side.

Tomorrow is a rest day for the bike riders….no tour….I may have withdrawal symptoms!