A couple new designs and COLOR!!

Oh my goodness, again I find myself apologizing for not writing.  My friend Amy came over yesterday for a visit and told me she keeps an eye on me through my blog and to get writing again.  That's what happens when you both have such busy lives I suppose, lol!  We must get together more often.  

We have been really making a LOT of progress on the shop.  The floor is down and the walls are going up.  I am beyond pleased with the progress.  I had a vision of how I wanted it to be but it's even surpassing that.  And I think finally after 26 years that my husband is finally starting to "get me" and my quirky ideas.  He doesn't even question me anymore when I say "I have an idea".  So, I will show one picture of the shop so far (no walls in this one) and then I'm going silent on it, until the big reveal......

Rustic is the key word.  We laid wood plank floors and I used two very old posts that I have had in the garage for a few years.  Everything will be very subdued since we will be bringing in so much color with the woolens and rugs.

So, in between working on the shop we have been busy making little decorative items to enhance the shop (and for the website) and I have been doing some designing.  

"Fish at Tin Pan" was inspired by a wonderful Rusty Tin fish hanging in the gardens at one of our favorite restaurants, Tin Pan Galley, in Sackets Harbor.  I LOVE this design and that rope border.  Mom is hooking it right now so keep watching for it....

..and here's an old one that I drew for Mom a few years ago.  Cathy, one of our Monday hookers insisted that I make it available as a pattern so, never one to disappoint, I have uploaded it to the website.  Here's the link:

13 Stars Hooked Rug Pattern/Kit

Last week Mom and I visited the local farmers market again.  Wednesdays have become our "getaway and breathe" day.  We usually hit the Farmers Market, have lunch, visit a couple of antique shops, run errands.  It's good to break away every so often and we really look forward to it....

Mom buying more flowers.....

 Lunch at a local Mom and Pop restaurant.  Johnny D's, great character in the place....

Each table was a windowpane filled with whimsical goodies....

Check out the canoe coming out of the wall....

So, I know I've already shown pictures of the farmers market, but today I brought my camera along because I knew more fresh produce was going to be there and I wanted to get pictures of color.  We have been having a hard time with the colors in the fish rug, the water, so it got me to thinking about just how many shades of one color there are and how to capture them in a rug, even a primitive rug......

like how many greens are in this leaf...

..and how many yellows in our lilies...

...the stripes on onion skins....

....the many greens in parsley....

......oh the wonderful oranges of these beautiful peppers...

..the spots of rust....

...and then putting them all together.  Beautiful!!

So, after our Wednesday break it was back home to work on the shop more.  Here's one of my "ideas".  I couldn't find the right shutters for the shop so I decided to make them.  These were made from some very rough wood from the Amish men's sawmill up the road.  I had some old tin panels in barn and an idea was born!

We cut each panel of rusty tin an inch bigger on each side and wrapped them around the wood cross sections on each shutter.  Wonderfully primitive!!  

I have more ideas to show you, but better call it quits for this post today.  We have a very busy day with hookers coming today for open hooking.  Our group gets larger every week and it can be a bit crazy, but wonderful at the same time.

Come back tomorrow to see some other "ideas" that I've forced hubby to do for the shop.

Until next time.....