February 2014 Report for the WCRHEAFebruary 23, 2014

After arriving home from Prairie Harvest Rug Hooking School, I continued with my Wind and Waves project, but had to set it aside before completion due to some urgent rug hooking which had some time constraints. My husbands a member of the Haig-Brown Fly Fishing Association. This group has a Christmas party each year with dinner, door prizes and presentations of awards. For the last several years, Ive hooked a trout of some sort and placed it in a small cushion. It has become a coveted door prize! I tried my hand at something very outside the box for me this past year and here is a photo of it. Its part of my Westcoast Whimsy series; this one being called, Westcoast Trout. Instead of a cushion this year, I finished it to be used as a small table mat. The recipient was ecstaticone of my husbands fishing buddies! I can borrow it back to bring it to Prairie Harvest in September.

Our Woolly Thyme Rug Hookers group takes a retreat to Yellowpoint Lodge each year near the end of October/ beginning of November. I did some work on my big living room rug (7 x 7 William Morris inspired) and got started on Christmas gifts. There was a rug-hooked wreath in A Needle Pulling Thread magazine. I kicked it up a notch (or two or three), and made them for my two kids and three grandkids, and a few other special peopleI just kept making them until Christmas!

Then my husband had an angiogram the Thursday before Christmas. Not eligible for stents, they said,

but it looks like we could do six by-passes on these badly blocked arteries on Monday, Dec. 23rd. Well we looked at one another and said YES PLEASE!!! So he was in hospital over

Christmas and stayed for ten days due to a pneumothorax (punctured lung) which happened during surgery.

Otherwise, hed have been out in five days! And they managed to do ONLY five by-passes! Hooking came to a standstill for a while. Hes my refurbished husband and is going just great! His heart was strong, but the arteries were blocked. What a wonderful Christmas gift for our whole family!

Then came our Woolly Thyme 10th Annual Winter Hook-In (mid January). Took the living room rug to work on. What a fun event! Cant say I got tons of hooking done, but it was wonderful to see faces beyond the perimeter of Victoria! There was a beautiful display of hooked rugs from far and wide. Amazing! Sheila Mitchell, who will be teaching Birds at Prairie Harvest this September, designed a dancing sheep as a gift from Woolly Thyme to those who attended. Ive got mine hooked and embellished already! It was so fun to do. I will frame it using stretcher frames and hang it on my Wool Room door!

As for teaching, I have a Wednesday Group, some of whom come over the Malahat twice monthly to the group, and they always have lots of questions regarding their rugs and rug hooking. We all enjoy getting together and although it isnt a formal teaching group, we discuss everyones dilemmas and come up with some choices for the individual rug hooker. Everyone learns this way and it seems to be a very successful group. Im doing my best to guide them into designing their own rugs and how to go about it. So far, so good! Theyre doing amazingly! They bring their lunch and I make tea. We hook from 10:00 a.m. til 2:00 p.m. That way, the ladies get safely home over the Malahat before the rush hour traffic and darkness.

So back to my Westcoast Whymsy series of designs, Ive got one completed and framed. Im making them 12 x 16, as this is a standard framing size. I purchased stretcher bars and pieces of frames from the art store to complete the project. Im using pre-made floating frames for a nice look. There are quite a few more designed on paper, and I will hook them as I feel like I want a change from completing old projects. Hopefully, Ill have quite a bit to show this year! This ones called Looking to the Olympic Mountains, but it could be anywhere along our beautiful coastline.

I bought a violin last June for my birthday. The plan was to play in the Greater Victoria Schools Orchestra Reunion at my high schools 100th anniversary in the present building. However, well be on a cruise to Alaska with my husbands brother and his wife, along with mutual friends. So in the meantime, Ive joined a fiddling group called Folkestra. We had a concert the Saturday before Christmas (Home for Christmas Concert), and the next one is May 11th. Its a blast! After not playing violin for over 50 years, Im amazed how the muscle memory works! My fingers arent as fast as they used to be, but it is so much fun. Our grandson plays guitar and the two of us go together to Folkestra! How fun is that?!? Ill be doing a fiddling Whimsy somewhere along the line!

My plan for this year is NOT to take any courses except for Prairie Harvest. The plan has already been disrupted! Shirley Byers and her husband Doug come to Victoria from Nova Scotia in the early spring each year and Shirley was very active in teaching in days gone by. She offered last year to teach Waldoboro when they come out this year. So sometime in March, our Woolly Thyme Rug Hookers will learn Waldoboro on a beautiful stocking design which Shirley shared with us last year. She completed it for a very special niece who lives in Vancouver. It was beautiful, and she kindly offered to show us how. It will be 2 days and well hold it in one of our homes. However, mostly this year, Id like to work on the living room rug as well as complete projects and design and hook some patterns in the Westcoast Whimsy style Im developing. Ive got lots of ideas!

Love to go thrifting. I quite often find wonderful wool pleated skirts. Got a Pendleton skirt the other day. It fulled up beautifully. Ill be using it in one (or more) of my designs!

And I must tell youI was out in the garden today! Beautiful sunny day and mild.

Thats it for now, Ladies!Michaele Freeman