Видео

Welcome to Paris Hill! We're on our way out after 24 years here, headed to the coast. But it's been an absolutely beautiful place to live and we cherish the memories we've made here.

Thank you. Enjoy your new digs on the coast. I'm looking forward to making a lot of great memories there myself.

You're welcome! Get in touch if you have any questions as you go.

Hi. I don't sell this specific rug hook (it was made by a gentleman in Nova Scotia who is no longer with us) but rug hooks - both traditional grip and pencil grip hooks like this one - are widely available. Crochet hooks are not generally recommended or used for rug hooking but will do in a pinch. I recommend the selection of rug hooks available at Two Cats and Dog Hooking in Bethel, Maine - www.twocatsanddoghooking.com. Get in touch with Ellen there and she can guide you. I hope this helps!

@ParrisHouseWoolWorks thank ypu! I've not been able to find d any shar enough to pierce fabric. I'll try contacting her

@@stillhuntre55 Well, a rug hook won't pierce tightly woven fabric. Rug foundation is woven with 12 or 13 holes per square inch, so it's quite an open weave.

@@ParrisHouseWoolWorks Good to know! Thanks so much!

Hi Diana! I usually have the edge just about the width of my serger foot, or maybe between 1/2 to 3/4 inch, BUT you can absolutely make it wider if you think you want more bulk underneath your whip stitching (might be appropriate for larger rugs or you could add cording). I cut my yarn lengths around 3 or 4 feet at a time so that it doesn't get all wound up and start to double over as I'm stitching. If it does, you can always just let the needle hang to rewind it, but I don't make my yarn lengths too long for that reason, especially if they're prone to de-plying. I hope this helps!

@@ParrisHouseWoolWorks Yes thank you so much!!

You're welcome! :)

I'm so glad this helped!

Thank you so much!

@@ParrisHouseWoolWorks you’re welcome

You're welcome!

Thank you so much! It means the world to me when I hear that something like this has been helpful. Please feel free to share it to your rug hooking friends and encourage them to subscribe. I do plan to keep offering useful content here as I can make it happen. I'm in the throes of finishing up my second book manuscript, but after that I'll be turning a lot more attention to my RUclips channel. :)

You are so welcome!

One question. How wide do you leave before surging ? Thank you so much for the directions Diane in WV formally from ME !

Thank you, Sonia! xo

This is linen. Canvas is not, to my knowledge, a rug foundation, so that may be part of the confusion as canvas is generally not woven with relatively open holes the way rug hooking linen, rug warp, and monks cloth are. The Sharpie is in a single row of holes. The linen is loosely woven in a grid of warp and weft, forming a particular number of holes per square inch depending on type. For example, fine linen has more holes per square inch than primitive linen, fine linen being meant for smaller cut wool or finer yarn/fiber. When you go to put a straight line on it, be it linen or any other rug foundation, you put the Sharpie tip into a hole at the beginning point and then drag it in a line straight down the "grain" or the row of holes in the weave that all line up between those two particular threads in the weave. If you go out of that row of holes, or out of the "ditch" as some people call it, your line will not be straight. You are literally following the weave of the foundation.

For anything round, whether it's putting binding tape on a round chair pad or doing a round backing for a pillow, you need to add small pleats, evenly spaced, as you stitch around. I pin the pleats where I want them in advance and continually check for evenness as I stitch.

If those work in your hand-sewing by all means use them. I find I can get the level of precision I want, especially if my backing has a pattern I need to really keep aligned (think plaids, stripes, etc), using traditional straight pins. My father was a master tailor who built his trade into what was, at the time, a nationally recognized clothing manufacturing company, so I've just always been around people sewing with steel straight pins as fasteners and was taught to use them. He would heartily disapprove, however, of the fact that I never use a thimble.

@@ParrisHouseWoolWorks you csn get the same précision with little pegs after all you sre removing them before you sew thst area snyway. And they hold things in place nicely right where you put them with no picking of fingers. Give it a try.

That's a great idea. I'll add it.

Hi Karen. This particular felting block is one that I've had for a long time and for the limited amount of felting I do, is just fine. However, we sell nice felting kits with the higher quality felting foam you mention (we do not sell styrofoam blocks). Those can be viewed and purchased here: parrishousewoolworks.com/collections/needle-felting Hope this helps.

@@ParrisHouseWoolWorks oh I don’t need any thankyou as I have been a felter for years and made many things. It was just for your readers as you asked for any tips on anything felting that might help. Maybe you should mention that you carry proper felting mats or use one on your post where you felt on rug hooked project it would give newbies a better idea of what you are supposed to use and advertise you mats too. Styrofoam in my opinion is the worst and giving a newbie in felting on rugs with it is not a good start.

@@karenvaage1228 This video is almost four years old and pre-dates our carrying of needle felting supplies. I am unlikely to re-make it at this point, although this conversation will stand as a heads up to anyone that some felting artists are strongly opposed to Styrofoam blocks. While I don't prefer Styrofoam either, other artists say it's fine (in fact, I purchased that block from the shop of an extremely accomplished needle felter whose work has been published in international magazines) and some even recommend saving Styrofoam packing material to use if you're trying to be thrifty or repurpose materials. Interestingly, this thread is bringing up an issue in fine craft that I have been having a lot of interesting conversations about with other artists and makers and that I have been asked to address in blog posts, panel discussions, etc. It's about how closely we hold our rules and laws in any craft and how by doing that we inadvertently gatekeep accessibility to and sometimes intimidate new practitioners. In rug hooking, there is particular rigidness in some of the guilds and I have been the port in the storm for quite a few students who got discouraged because they did not follow - did not desire to follow - the guild's orthodoxies. Having taught many hundreds of students rug hooking and written one book on heritage skills with another on rug hooking underway, one philosophy I impart to newbies immediately is this: in the arts, there are probably at least a dozen ways to do any one thing and while tools are important, they are also a very personal choice based on personal preference, budget, and availability within that person's supply environment. My hooking foremothers and forefathers were creating masterpieces on burlap grain sacks with hooks fashioned from animal bone or wood handles with bent nail shanks. While I am a big advocate for linen foundation and have definite preferences for finely turned hooks with specific characteristics, I recognize that some of the most accomplished artists in my niche do things very differently than I do, and that's the first thing I tell my students. Another example would be that I am pretty adamant about not having any "tails" on the back of my work. That is literally a hard and fast rule for me. And yet, I have a dear friend - again, a highly accomplished and widely published fine hooking artist - who leaves *all* of her tails on the back. The best gift we can give newbies is our own take on what we do in our own practice and why, followed by the freedom to create on their own terms in their own ways with their own tools. Otherwise, we stand to lose these heritage crafts altogether.

@@ParrisHouseWoolWorks well it’s fine just thought I was helping no need for a discussion thanks for the feedback.

@@karenvaage1228 And you are helping because anyone reading the thread will think twice about a block like the one in the video and start exploring the options. Dialog and discussion in the arts is important. Thank you for your contribution.

When I go under the loops I'm not catching anything; just going under the loops and coming back up in between the next set, making a stitch, then underneath again. In other words, the thread is not weaving through on the underside, not the wool or the foundation. You're just making a stitch and then coming back up two loops later. I hope this makes sense!

@@ParrisHouseWoolWorks Yes Thank you so much!!! Just under the loops got it. Makes perfect sense.

Yes, I think you could. I think what I would do in that case, also, is perhaps put a few anchor stitches in to the batting on the top side to keep it from moving around - the stitch would be invisible from the top side because it would be down in the loops and just show on the back side of the batting. Then you could stitch your decorative back material on just as shown in the video, which would hide the batting and the anchor stitches keeping the batting from sliding or bunching around in there.

Happy Mother's Day to you too!

Thanks! I will try to keep posting videos as we go through this season. This is our fifth season beekeeping and every year I learn something new.