The Fruity Pebbles Rug

I'm sitting here waiting for "the guys" to come do some minor renovations to the kitchen and I'm about to pick up my rug hook again.  It never fails -- I go literally weeks without hooking a single loop, and then once I pick up the hook, I can't put it down!

On Friday, at around 4 PM, I finished transferring the pattern I was going to use for my Kool-Aid wool to the backing, and I thought I would just hook a loop or two to see how the colours would look together.  Well, by the time I got out of my chair, it was nearly 1 AM!  I even forgot to eat supper!

Here's the "loop or two" I hooked.So I thought I'd better take an "in-progress" photo before I picked up the hook again today!

As I was hooking away on it Friday night, my five-year-old niece called me on speakerphone as she and her family were heading to a Halifax Mooseheads hockey game.  Emily asked me what I was doing, and I told her I was hooking a rug.  She was very curious about that, and once she understood that I was making a "small carpet," she asked why I was making one instead of just buying one.  Rather than attempt to explain Zen and the Art of of Rughooking, I simply told her that it was because it made me happy.  "Oh!"  Emily exclaimed.  "So you're a happy hooker!"

As my sister and brother-in-law broke down into choking gales of laughter in the background, Emily immediately started composing a song about "Auntie Karen the Happy Hooker."  I would have given anything to be there!  I'm sure I would have had tears streaming down my face from laughing so hard.

So after we'd said our "love yous" and "goodbyes," I decided that this rug, with its bright, happy colours would be for Emily.  And the longer I hooked away at it, the more I realized it even looked like (and smelled like?) Emily's favourite cereal, Fruity Pebbles.

I'm loving the way the colours are coming together, and I'm loving the soft feel of the wool.  This is the first time I've hooked with TWC wool and the first time with any wool I've dyed myself.  But it's also the first time I've used monkscloth as a backing, and I have to say that I'm not loving that part quite so much.

First of all, the threads move around much more easily than they do in linen.  On the "pro" side, it's easier on the hands to pull the loops through, but on the "con" side, the loops fall out much more easily.  But by far, the worst, most frustrating part is that the gripper strips on my Puritan frame are wreaking havoc on the weave and distorting the pattern to pieces.

I've tried pulling it back into shape, but it's not easy.  I think I'll save the monkscloth for scroll frames and hoops in the future, because I'm not quite sure if I'm even going to be able to fix this.  Linen may be more expensive, but it's definitely my backing of choice from here on in.

Happy hooking! :)