Hooking with recycled wool

  Unbelievable, but Florida thrift stores are a good source of old Pendleton shirts and skirts. You would think that moving to Florida, northerners would have tossed the winter clothes before setting off to the sunny south.
  If you do find that prefect shirt or skirt, take it apart and wash it in a cold water wash with detergent. You can dry the wool pieces on the gentle cycle in a drier. That old Pendleton fabric holds up very well and makes good rug wool.
  If you find a good selection of shirts you may wish to work a sampler of how the wool will look worked as in the chair pad for Kerry below:

  I am making stair treads for our back stairs and have made a number of sampler chair pads with the intention of seeing how the various Pendleton plaids work up. Kerry is our labradoodle always with her tongue hanging our waiting for a treat. Chair pad samplers are useful and a work up quickly.

Musings from a rug hooker

 Why does one start a 12 foot hooked runner? Why? Because one has more than 12 feet of hall and bags and bags of wool. The idea seemed like a good one. Design something that is repetive, not too involved, and get going. So, I thought a foot a week would be a modest plan towards completion.
  Today I am looking at the 3 feet finished so far in (5 weeks) and thinking 12 feet is way long. Besides, it is getting heavy.

  However, on the plus side it is using up bags of wool. I hook and think of all the other hookers who have taken on large rugs. Did we all start thinking it would be easy and fast?
  Determination and color selection is keeping me going. That and the bags of wool still to be used. A large portion of the wool I am using is recycled Pendelton shirts and skirts. The photo doesn't really show the patterns the textures create. The rest of the wool is my hand dyed pieces and some ombre from Dorr.
  It would be interesting to see other very long hall runners done by you out there. I seldom see one at workshops or shows.
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