Hooking the sky for the Virgins piece has been quite a learning experience with lots of little problems to solve to make it work.
First of all, the test pieces I dyed were of course WAY too narrow. To figure out how wide the wool would need to be …..
….I hooked a row from side to side at the widest point, pulled it out and measured it. The only Dorr natural wool I had on hand left was not quite wide enough (78″ of wool needed to hook one row from side to side), but I decided I would be able to fill it in with left overs that would blend . (said with fingers crossed).
Luckily The centre line left from drawing the arch was still visible, so I darkened that and was ready to start. For the dip dye to work, the wool must be hooked in the order.
I marked the right side of the wool with a pin, and used tape to keep the strips in order. ….keeping the right side on the top (as opposed to the left).
I put tape on the right end of the strip before hooking it….
……then folded it to find the middle.…then hooked that middle loop on the centre line marking……hooked the right side over, then the left, leaving the extras hanging
Once I got up high enough to go all the way across, I could work back down, thus keeping the rows straight and aligned. (I hooked every other row of the backing).
My wool was longer the the actual sky, but I wanted the deepest top blue to be used, so I began hooking from the top down….…..and took a chunk out of the middle so that the blues blended where they met.
I finished by hooking from the bottom up using the strips that were hanging. There were lots of left overs to fill in the few spaces left over on the edges.
It’s not quite as pale as shown in this picture. I like the fact that it doesn’t compete with the brightness of the virgins’ clothing. Some fix ups to do (like changing the black outline of the brown building) and the final step is to add some greenery.
A number of years ago I hooked this tea cozy, and my plan is to use the same techniques to add some vines and flowers.
They are applied over top of the hooking using both yarn and strips and embroidery techniques. Should be fun!
Tomorrow is April 1st….but I think April Fool’s day came one day early. Look what I woke up to this morning!
No spring flowers yet in my yard!
Thanks for stopping by.