A New Rug Hooking Project: Berry

A couple of weeks ago, on a post about blueberry blossoms, a reader commented on their similarity to the fruit. A little chime went off in my artist brain, and I did a series of sketches based on this idea. What I finally came up with alludes to the flower and fruit without precision; I chose yellow for the bell shape, as a contrast to the purple, which is closer to the hue of grape than blueberry; the ripply flourish at the blossom's opening is gone for simplicity's sake.

When I work on a sketch for a ruglet, I keep my dye sample book in front of me as an aid for color mixing; by checking the available dyes, I have a better idea of colors I will need. The pencil notes you see under the watercolor remind me which dyes I plan to use.




I dip dyed the end of the yellow wool into light green so I can give the bell form a slight sense of volume; the change will be very subtle. The purple wool has a nice variegated color range, created by crowding the wool in the dyepot so the dye doesn't reach all the material evenly; I love the color shifts that come from hand dyeing, which gives the work a quivering uncertainty, more lively than flat hues. I think these three colors are quite gorgeous together, and hope they look as good when hooked.




The hooking patterns for this piece, which is 10 inches square, are: following the outlines on bell and circle, and random for the green background. As the weather is a bit cooler, (we've had a lot of much warmer than normal temperatures), I can enjoy sitting and working with wool on my lap.