A little bit about texture and variegated floss in your hooking and punching.

I want to talk a bit today about texture in your hooked rugs and hand dyed floss in your punch needle embroidery.  I have recently started offering my own hand dyed floss.  I sometimes feel that a design can be flat if you don't throw in a variegated floss as a focal point.  It does irritate me though to pay over $2 a skein for hand dyed floss.  My designs are significantly larger than most out there and can use 20-30 skeins of floss per design.  So, with that said, I am slowly but surely going to offer the option at each pattern page for you to purchase the floss. I am also selling my hand dyed floss @ $1.20 a skein.  Now, this is not a sales pitch, (well, maybe a little)  because, as you may know there is a tremendous amount of work involved in dyeing floss and I may be creating a monster, but I think it's very necessary to offer for my designs and I want my customers to be able to have this option for a decent price.  I am not trying to pressure you to purchase the design with the floss. I know many of you prefer to choose your own colors, that is why I also never give floss numbers, rather just color suggestions in my patterns.  I do not endorse any certain thread.  I happen to use Sullivans floss, which is basically the same as DMC, but easier for me to get. But, I use many CORE colors.  I always use the same red, blue, green, gold, orange, etc.  On my thread suggestion cards you will see colors listed with no numbers. Again, this is because I know that like me, you all probably have your favorite "go to" red, blue, etc. and brand.

So, as you can see below I just finished punching my "All Hallows Eve" pattern last night and wanted to show you the Dirty Pumpkin background.  See the flecks of brown throughout? Also, the moon and cauldron have been done with my Antique black (it's darker in person, the flash made it brighter).  The variegation in these colors really makes a statement.

"All Hallows Eve" punch needle pattern, click this link to go to the website:
All Hallows Eve pattern

Close up of All Hallows Eve, see the background variation in color..

Hand Dyed Dirty Pumpkin Floss

But, with all that said, I know some of you prefer to just use solids and that's ok too!  If you only wanted to use your favorite solid orange and solid black for this design that would be fine.  It's your pattern you can do what you want!  

So, now to Rug Hooking!  Mom hooked the design first and used our Pumpkin Pie wool.  We have had this wool forever and thought we would give it a try for the background.  Well, take a look at the second picture close up of the background.  The brown plaid running through the wool has given the background a great grungy, variegated look.  Since I wanted this look for the punch needle design I knew I was going to have to use my Hand dyed Dirty Pumpkin to get the same look.  

But, as I mentioned above, if you were hooking this design and wanted to use a solid orange that would be fine too, this is only OUR opinion.  

All Hallows Eve Hooked Rug, click this link to go to the website for the kit (pattern only is also available):
All Hallows Eve Hooked Rug Kit

Close up of All Hallows Eve Hooked Rug showing the variegation that the orange plaid wool creates when hooked.  

The reason I write all this is because like I've said, I've just starting offering the Hand dyed floss and I wanted to explain just how we use it.  We get a lot of questions about color planning which we always say is very personal to the hooker.  Don't you just love to look at rug hooking books and see a pattern that has been hooked in many different color schemes??  It's amazing to see everyone's vision of a pattern. 

With all that said, you must all like our color idea because look at the "All Hallows Eve" kits that went out yesterday!!  Thanks very much for your orders ladies!!  

If you have any questions/comments at all about the Hand dyed floss, textured wool, color planning, etc, please don't hesitate to email or comment below, we'd love to hear from you!

Until next time!