I'm Hooked!: February 2009

Thursday, February 26, 2009

Sandy's house

All the local hookers meet at Sandy's house every Thursday night. I have not really been able to join them because if Eric gets home before 7 it is his date night with the girls. Last week I got a babysitter so Haley and I could meet with them and it was wonderful. Tonight we went a little late but Haley and I made it to Sandy's house to hook with the ladies. I really feel like I need to pay them for their time. They are so willing to answer all my questions and share their wealth of knowledge and experience with Haley and I.

I have had a hard time deciding the background colors for the rug. Tonight Sandy helped me color plan my beehive rug and I loved her ideas... of course it involves dying more wool so that rocks. I can't wait to get started.

Rug hooks

There are many different kinds of hooks you can purchase for rug hooking. They start as low as $5 and got up to whatever you want to spend. After talking to the Thursday night hookers, I realized that they all collect hooks but the coveted rare hook is a Pearl Mcgown. They have not been made since the 60s and are pretty rare. Two of the women have one and they love them because if the history behind them.
I told Eric that eventually I would like to have one, but after searching all the auction and antique sites on the internet I realized exactly how hard they are to find.

Then one day while I was looking on Ebay for a Puritan frame (my daughter and I have been sharing and we need another) I came across a listing for "antique rug hooks" they did not list the names in the title, they only gave the names in the description. There were 18 hours left and only one person had bid and the bid was at $12. HOLY COW, are you kidding me??? I told Eric what I found and asked him what was the absolutely HIGHEST I could bid without him getting mad at me. He said $20 and I thought that was fair, but there was a HUGE problem. When the auction ended we would be in Sunday school at church. This was a big problem for two reasons, first I do not shop on Sunday and second I don't ditch church. But this was a Pearl Mcgown for $12 and the sin might be worth it. I talked to Eric and he said not to worry, he would bid on it in the last few seconds on his I phone. I looked him in the eyes and said "You realize how important this is to me right? Please don't forget." He promised he wouldn't.

(Ebay auction photo)

Sunday school started.... no Eric. I kept watching the clock until the auction ended and I felt sick to my stomach. I just knew that someone had started talking to him in the hall and he forgot. Several minutes after the auction ended he came into class and sat down like nothing. I waited for him to say something and he didn't. He turned his Iphone on (his scriptures are on them) and the screen was still on Ebay and it said that the auction closed for $40.00!

I knew there was no way Eric would have bid $40 on little hooks so again, I felt sick. After class he pulled me aside and told me that 3 minutes before the auction ended he started loosing his signal. So he walked into the parking lot, still no signal. So he got in his car and started driving to find a signal. Finally with 1 minute the price was at $27 and he quickly bid $40, but then the signal faded and he did not know if it went through or not. Several minutes later and after the auction ended his signal come back and he saw that his bid went through and he won it.

I came home and checked the bid history. Eric's $40 bid went through with 15 seconds left. After he bid someone tried to outbid him with 5 seconds left and their bid of 39.50 was not high enough, so the auction closed before they had a chance to bid again.

Clearly my husband loves me a ton and clearly this hook "Pearl" was supposed to live at my house!

Now I understand why the women collect so many hooks. My Mom even game me an old hook that my Dad used to make a rug. It's the one facing up with a hole in it, I have no idea how to use that hook... I need to ask.

Monday, February 23, 2009

Progress...

Saturday, February 21, 2009

Our 1st Chapter meeting

Today I joined the California's 1st Atha chapter for rug hooking. I had been told that todays meeting was called movies and popcorn. When we got there Haley asked if they were showing movies about rug hooking and I said no, just old movies. Then when they started the 1st show it was about the hooked rugs from Noviscotia. As soon as Haley heard it was about hooked rugs she said "Oh cool". everyone commented as we looked at the images of very old rugs. One of the rugs said hooker unknown and Sandy said "I never want to go down as an unknown hooker... girls identify my work". That was my favorite quote of the day.

This woman Sara told Haley to "sit down" then she sketched out Haley's face with a paper and pencil. You could tell that Haley felt like a rock star with all the attention and women telling her how beautiful she is.

That same lady Sara hand carves her own rug hooks. Sara was telling me that she is also a musician and that she makes herself crazy because there is so much that she wants to create and do she can't sleep. I though to myself "This is me in 50 years".