Thursday, October 20, 2011

mini get-away


My bags are packed and I'm ready to go to Chantry....or am I? Truth be told, I haven't hooked in ages, so I'm feeling a little out of touch and was at a bit of a loss for what to bring. When I first signed up for this class, I was planning on using it as a reason to resume working on the portraits of my grandparents (started at Hooked in the Mountains several years ago...and hastily buried after I returned home to too much critique in too short a time span). It's a project that I still want to get back to, but I just don't feel in the right mood to psych myself into tackling such a challenge.....

Luckily my conundrum of 'what to bring' was resolved last week. In the midst of a cleaning/purging of epic proportions (3 large boxes of books to the library, a full carload of stuff to the Sally Ann, and big bag for the food bank, not to mention many items passed along to friends and family), I happened upon another project from the past: family pets rug. It's still kind of related to the family theme of the class – not just because the two WIPs have been residing in the same bin for ages...LOL!.

I started the pets piece many, many years ago, in a class with Ann Hallet. It was probably 8-9 years ago.....and the reason it was set aside was sheer busyness - not that I fell out of love with my ideas. In fact, I modified my plan when I created "Hermiston Zoo" for my sister's family a few years later.

The list of pets is long gone. Same for the stack of blue and green wools that I had dyed for the backgrounds. So I was still scrambling a bit to get ready...raiding of my wool shelves for large pieces of blues and greens, 'borrowing' blacks and whites from Jumbo, and doing more than a little guesswork in pulling random bins of cut strips. I hope that I was correct in figuring there's a greater likelihood of finding what I need in there than in choosing a few select pieces from the shelf. It's so much easier to hook at home, where you have access to your entire stash....

At one point last night, I was briefly considering just bringing some knitting to work on....but I quickly reminded myself how rude that would be -- and really, all I am hoping to accomplish is to have fun, be social, share ideas, be inspired....and the hooking part is really secondary. At least it is for me when I'm a student in a class or at a school. So it doesn't really matter if I brought the right wool or not...right?

Back next week with pictures -- and not just of knitting! :-D