Author Archives: tinpedlar

About tinpedlar

The Tin Pedlar of Maine Chapter of ATHA (Association of Traditional Hooking Artists) shares a common purpose of promoting the art of rug hooking through education, sharing of ideas and group activities.

Florals Side Bar

At our monthly meetings we have “Side Bars” as part of the presentation. These side bars are a chance to share hooked items with the membership. Some of these are composed of the presenter’s rugs. Some are exhibits of challenge mats. Or like this month’s they are all demonstrations of a theme.

This month’s theme was “Flowers”. Members were encouraged to bring in any hooked item that contained flowers. As usual we had wonderful variety representing the knowledge and variety of hooking styles of our members.

Paint Brush Dyeing with Faith Webster

Here are written notes on the process Faith presented on. We are pulling together a video of the lesson (sorry taking longer than planned).

Faith Webster presented a fun program at the May meeting, Paint Brush Dyeing. Here are her notes for those who were unable to attend and want to try this at home, or even if you were present but want notes for future reference:

For all of you who wish to dye with paint brushes at home:

Summer is a good time, do it outside.

For each color, use 1/4 tsp dye in 1 cup boiling water. Stir well. I use Cushing dyes. We used Crimson, Pink, Sky Blue, Buttercup Yellow and Apricot. Peach would be good as well, but you really only need 3 colors to do a good sky – look at sky photos or the real thing and decide. Add a dollop of vinegar to each dye container.

If you have old canning jars, they work well. They will also have covers if you want to keep unused dye for a while. Plastic is OK as well but use those for hot beverages. Be sure to label – dyes look a lot alike when they are mixed.

When you paint brush dye at home, use a cookie sheet (as large as possible), cover it with tin foil and leave enough extra to cover your wool after you are finished. Keep the wool as flat as possible.

When you have achieved perfection, cover the whole thing with the excess tin foil, add about 1/2 to 1 cup water with 1/4 cup of vinegar and bake at 200 degrees for about 20 min. You may not have enough water in your pan when you are finished dyeing, so check. The idea is not to let it dry out in the oven.

Rinse and dry. Voila – sky – or whatever.

P.S. Mimi found that she could have used an artist’s brush which is stiffer, for vertical lines while doing her northern lights. Make note of any other variations you may experience.

Loops of Love Project

Loops of Love for Newtown is a rug hooking project to support the teachers of the Sandy Hook Elementary school in Newtown, CT in the aftermath of the recent tragedy.

Volunteers around the globe will be creating a mat or rug that will given to the educators and support staff to let them know that they are thought of and that their bravery and efforts are admired and respected. We do not need to remind them of the day of horror but want to give them a hug and remind them that the world has beauty. Additional mats donated by volunteers may be given to educators and support staff at the other schools in Newtown.

Volunteers should create a mat or rug that is a maximum of 9″ across. In order to open this to as many volunteers as possible you may be flexible on your size and can create a single or set of mug mats, or a larger mat. It can be square, round, rectangular or shape that is pleasing with the design. It can be hooked or punchneedle, wool strips or yarn, and should be a design that will make the recipient smile and feel like they have received a hug.

This is not the project to show your amazing skills with proddy or modern dimensional art but a time to create something the average teacher would want on their desk or in their living room every day. It is a gift, so should have a finished edge and label with your name and State/country at minimum (but you can donate it anonymously if you wish).

Your mats should be sent to the following address to arrive no later than January 18th. Seriously…January 18th!!! Diane and Lauri will drive the mats to Connecticut the following week.

Loops of Love project ~
C/O Diane Tanerillo
600 West Main Street
P.O. Box 60 Denmark, Maine 04022

Feel free to include a card or other item with your mat but please attach it securely to your mat and do not wrap the mat! Your mats will be displayed so that the teachers can select the one that they want so do not wrap them. We will take some photos of your mats for the website. Please contact Lauri if you would like to participate. Should you have questions you can contact us via e-mail.

Thank you so much in advance!

Lauri Troutman ~ MizT(at)maine(dot)rr(dot)com
Diane Tanerillo ~ Deedeetan(at)fairpoint(dot)net

Raffle Rug News

The raffle rug is complete and looks beautiful (way better than this iPad photo shows). Thank you to all that lent their time and talents to it this year.

There has been a change in the date of pulling the winning ticket. At our December meeting we were made aware of an issue with outstanding tickets. It was put to a vote of the attending membership on whether to precede to pull on the Dec. date as printed on the tickets or to wait until our January meeting. The group voted to wait……So the winning ticket will be pulled at the January meeting.

Inspiration & Symbolism with Michele Micarelli

This collage generated with Smilebox

Walking in and seeing the variety of rugs and then the wools for sale was inspiration enough for this blogger. Then Michele spoke. She has such energy and love for this art form.

Hearing her stories about how a rug developed, how she shares parts of her life story within her rugs certainly got me looking at how we can make all our pieces unique and reflective of ourselves.

As a rug hooker who has never hooked a purchased pattern, focuses on geometrics and loves colors in a scrappy look, below are some bits and pieces from Michele’s talk that caught my attention:

light comes forward, dark goes back
exception – pathway will get lighter as moves away
distance steals color clarity
Almost never the color. It’s the contrast
Drawing is learned skill, so practice, practice, practice.

Would love to hear how other members took inspiration for possible future pieces from what was presented.

Raffle Rug 2012

The raffle rug is well under way and looking beautiful.

So now it’s time to sell the tickets for the December drawing. The raffle ticket booklets will be available for members to pick up at the Oct. meeting.

If you are interested in purchasing raffle tickets for this rug, but will not be having contact with any Maine Tin Pedlar member please send an email to us at tinpedlar(at)yahoo(dot)com and we will arrange to get you the tickets you want.

Pettengill Farm Days

The weather held. In fact it was a beautiful Fall day. Between exploring the event, doing some personal hooking and sharing our art form with many interested individuals, Kim D, Lauri and Debbie agreed they enjoyed the day.

With so many families attending the event we again had many children trying their hands at rug hooking. They picked it up quick and totally enjoyed themselves. Think there will be some brownie troop projects and Christmas ornaments made in a few families this year.

Shaker Hill Outcome

Our first opportunity to demonstrate our art form at the Shaker Hill Apple Festival in Alfred was simply FUN!

Whether it was our chance to just sit and hook, get to know other members better, browse the festival, partake of some festival food, talk with those who “remember my grandmother hooking” and others who hook, and of course getting some future rug hookers started A special treat was turning around from answering questions to see the young girl that had been hooking on the sample frame helping another young girl try it. (Doing a really good job of it.) Another treat was getting stopped by an individual who had tried their hand pulling loops and wanted to show off a hoop they had just picked up at the festival yard sale.

The 3 of us there agreed that having a colorful rug like Lauri’s caught many more eyes. Then once there we had a true variety of active pieces available to explain and show the variety this art form includes. A FUN day and hoping to maybe see some new faces at one of our upcoming meetings.

Cumberland Fair Rugs

Janet has checks for the demonstrators, checks for some of the prizes and the rugs she originally took to the fair. She will bring everything to the October meeting.
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photo of our exhibit by Lauri Troutman (more to come)

A Little Challenge Inspiration

For those working on the challenge for the Cumberland Fair. A little inspiration for you Sarah DeCosta Graffam’s piece ~ this is a large piece she’s making real progress on.

Remember need these challenge pieces done and forms filled in by the Sept. meeting.