The hooking of Grumpy has been done for a few weeks now, and I spent a while deciding on how I would finish him. 
For rugs intended to hang on the wall, I often just turn the edges under . I like the ‘tapestry’ effect it creates. However, sometimes that doesn’t work and Grumpy is a case in point. The bottom of Grumpy is hooked vertically, while the upper background is hooked horizontally. I don’t think the blank edges would look good because of that. I don’t want a border, or a prominent whipped edge, so I’m doing a very small whipped edge with no binding tape on the back.
The first step was to dye yarn to go with the two different colours. Jean (who has much more experience in dyeing yarn than I) told me to allow 1 foot per inch then add some. (I would have just divided the skein in two and dyed it all (and wasted a lot of yarn in the process). Not wanting to run short I added four extra yards to each hank……
….secured it loosely so it wouldn’t turn into a rat’s nest in the pan….and spot dyed it with the same colours as the top and a second skein with the greys for the bottom.
Into the electric frying pan it went….
….and now it blends nicely with the background sky.
I measured and drew a line 1.5″ from the edges of the hooking, and zigzagged around the rug just inside the line.
I cut off the excess right along my pencil line……
and clipped the edge back(using my faithful red quilting clips….so much batter than pins) gently leaving just enough backing showing that it wouldn’t pull the end loops over. (this is what will determine how wide the whipping will be and I want mine as small as possible).
I whip from the front, but make sure that each stitch goes into the same line on the backing so that I have a nice straight edge on the back.
It is hardly visible from the top….
….but makes a nicely finished view on the side.
When finished I will turn under the raw edge , steam it, and slip stitch it in place. As you can imagine, this is a slow process, so I alternate between whipping and working on ‘Oil on Water’.
Here’s how it’s coming along.
The hooking now covers about 42″ x 32″. It’s getting harder already for me to hang it up with clamps for viewing.
My ulterior motive in writing a blog this morning is to distract me from thinking about my schnauzer Baxter, who is undergoing surgery. Nothing serious, but three different procedures . He’s fourteen years old and a very special member of our family. Hopefully I’ll hear from the vet before long that it is over and all went well.
Thanks for stopping by.
The flash rather bleached it out in this photo. (I never notice these things at the time).
I was pleased with the first ‘flame’ motif….
….but it’s pretty ‘glaring’ as I add the second larger one….
The dark background is doing its work in toning it down and absorbing some of that colour.
What I’ve hooked so far is about 38″ wide.
All the lighter blues 2nd from the right, I plan to overdye with navy so that they more closely resemble the very darks at the end. I really like that deep blue as the background and I will need an endless supply. I haven’t dyed a large amount of any of the other colours yet as I’m still experimenting with what I like. I just realized that this photo distorts the cantaloupe colour. It is more ‘peachy’ in real life.