A new hobby!

You know that feeling you get when you are about to hit the yarn shop? You wake up, knowing it's the day you're going yarn shopping. You're excited, because you're on the hunt for a new project. You can't wait to peruse the pattern booklets. You're eager to fondle the yarn. You're lightheaded just imagining the colors... And then you decide on a project, you pay up, head out the door and you're so eager to start. Your pulse is racing. You can hardly wait to get home and start knitting. You stay up late that night just trying to squeeze in a few more rows. It's really a wonderful feeling!

Well I haven't had that feeling for a while, about yarn, that is. Don't get me wrong! I love buying yarn for the shop. I love unloading a new yarn when it arrives in boxes and bags. I love playing with it and finding a perfect home for it in the shop. But I am surrounded by all of this yarn everyday. So it's not AS exciting when I start a new project. For me, it's just walking into the warehouse and finding the color I want. I miss the thrill that I used to have before I owned the shop. I still have the thrill of knitting... but the picking out thrill seems to be thing of the past.

At least with yarn! Last week Barb and I went to Green Mountain Hooked Rugs in Montpelier on Tuesday. Barb has a couple of rugs that she is currently working on, and of course Michele has been hooking rugs for a long time. Michele has some AMAZING pieces. She's really an inspiration. So we've all been talking about it, and I have always loved hooked rugs - how they look and feel, and what amazing designs you can do with them. I decided I wanted to get a small project. They didn't have a huge selection of patterns - but I did find one I liked, though it was a little bigger than I wanted. What gorgeous wools! I am using shades of greens and teal blues and oranges and I had so much fun picking out fabrics. I could hardly drive home - I was THAT excited. I just wanted to pull over and start hooking my rug. And then when we got back to work, we both wanted to cut our strips and get started. I had a million ideas in my head about how to arrange the colors. And I'd never even hooked before!

So now I've been up until 11:30 each night (that's very late for ME!) working on my rug. It's really fun. I am treating this as a learning experience. In each little section that I work, I get better and better. I can already look back at my first square and see things I'd like to do differently, but I'm not going to change anything. This will be my starter piece and I'll enjoy looking back at it and remembering how much I learned.

I haven't totally set aside the knitting needles. I did finish another mixed fiber rib scarf. The first one I made turned into a shop sample and is usually found around Kalen's neck. Now mine is in greens.
LOVE it. Might have to make another one.

I've also been doing some punch needle. Kind of fun. Different. I like rug hooking better, but this mixes things up a bit.

I think my next hooking project will be a chair pad, with yarn. Stay tuned.