Paring Down

Thinning the Collection

When I started rug hooking about 6 years ago, I was really motivated to build a stash and find projects without a large monetary investment.  When someone would offer a bag of worms they no longer wanted after completing a rug....I grabbed it.  Small (and a few large) rug patterns that were offered inexpensively (or free) were nabbed up, too.  It's been a case of "my eyes are bigger than my stomach".  I now have a more than healthy stash of wool and patterns, and I've decided that I should use what I've collected.  It's become a challenge.  

First, I needed to tackle the mixed collection of worms. I sorted them by color, for example, yellow greens, blue greens, golds, blue reds, etc. and place them in bags.  Now I had a range of shades for a color family - not really swatch colors.

Here are a few samples

The first pattern I've tackled from the stash is by Jane McGown Flynn,  "November".  I needed to be able to get a sort of shading without using swatches - using my bags of related colors.

This is how I treated the first leaf in the mat.

Here I've added some reds and greens.

When I'm hooking a pattern, I'm always thinking of where my colors will go. I apply the "rule of odds" from composition that suggests an odd number of items in an image is more interesting, more naturalistic.  An even number of subjects produces symmetry which can appear less natural or even dull.  Though there are more than 3 red objects in the design, because of their close placement, they make 3 groups of red.  The odd number causes your eye to move around the design.  I've only hooked 2 gold leaves, so I will need to pick up the gold color at least in one more place to give me an odd number.  You'll notice in the artist's design that Jane has added 3 acorns, 5 leaflets on the large leaf on the left, 3 leaves in the grouping on the top right, and 3 berries on each stem above the large leaf.... the rule of odds.