Weekend of Hooking

I spent the weekend in a hooking workshop with a wonderful teacher, Jackye Hansen.  It's a bit of an exaggeration to say that I spent the weekend hooking, however.  I asked for a custom pattern - an adaptation of a smaller pattern Jackye has in her catalog.  I wanted something larger with spring birds and flowers.  I was really excited about the pattern at first:

I hooked the bluebird first.  I was okay with how he turned out - this isn't fine shading, but somewhere in between fine and primitive.

However, the more I looked at him, the more I was bothered by how BIG he is!  It's hard to tell from the photo, but he's larger than the actual bird.  And larger than the robin sitting to the left of him. I think I need to rip him out and make him just a little smaller. 

And then there are the dogwood blossoms.  The darker pink I was outlining with is too close to the petal color.  All you can see is a big pink blob once you step away from the rug.  Those need to be redone, too.

Needless to say, my inspiration faded quickly (partly due to a severe headache I just couldn't shake), so I spent most of the workshop chatting and watching my classmates get lots of beautiful work done.  I should have taken pictures - there were some really wonderful rugs being worked on!

Before I even think about tackling the issues with the bird rug, I want to finish the Jumbo Star.  I dusted it off a month or so ago with the intention of finishing it before the workshop, but of course that didn't happen.  I am making progress, though, and would really like to finish it by the end of March. 

I have way too many new projects I am already committed to starting this year and I am being tempted by even more.  I need to be able to cross something off my list before I add more to it (not to mention that I am running out of bags to use to store my rug UFOs!).