My last grandchild portrait

Phew, my last grandchild portrait, Milly is finished apart from a little tweaking and binding. It will be nice to continue on my oriental rug and that one will only take me a couple of years to finish!!!

Meet Sam the man, grandson number five

This is Sam, grandson number five.  He is 3/4 of the way finished. Still a bit of tweaking to do on the face, but I'll do that at the end. This is a very different background than my other portraits. I will be looking forward to doing a little girl though for my next and last portrait rug.

Blake

I have made a good start on my fourth grandson rug. This is Blake, nine years old and a lovely quiet boy. I think it shows in his face, don't you. [or maybe I see it, because he is my grandson].
In the first photo I have made a start on his eyes and mouth. There is always tweaking to be done, but I will do that when I have completed his face. I like to see it as a whole before I make changes.

Some tweaking done on the nose in the third photo. I think it is more defined now.

Josh finished

Hi folks, just thought I'd let you see the last of my grandson rugs. Let me introduce Josh to you.
Ta da!!

Jacob completed

Second grandson completed, only four more to go. I finished him off with wool piping. I love this method as it is fast and ties in beautifully with the background. I will use this method on all my portrait rugs I think. 

Jacob

Hello fellow rug makers,
I am hoping to see a lot of your beautiful work here as it will encourage rug makers around the world in their quest for more knowledge and more beautiful rugs as a result to learn from.
As I am now working on my third portrait rug and my second Grand Child rug, I am posting an update on Jacob.
I have had a lot of problems with the background on this rug and it took me a while to get the colours  just right. However I am finally getting there and now looking forward to getting it finished.
Here is a photo.

Isaac rug is bound

My finished rug, bound and all.
I finished the rug with purple wool piping, a method that Wanda Kerr teaches on the Welcome mat.
I used about 10mm thick cord, which I encased in a long strip of wool about 10cms wide by the length all around the rug plus some extra. You then sew your cord into the wool strip on your machine with a zipper foot, the whole length of your strip, leaving about 5 cms undone at each end.
You place your piping so that it sits nice and snug against your last row of hooking on your rug, with your loose flap at the back.  You then just sew it with a running stitch placing the stitches between your loops all the way around, easing in at the corners. When you get to the end, you cut the cord so that they but snugly together and overlap the fabric and sew it down.
You then sew down the access at the back as you would any binding. Voila, done. Quick, easy and a nice finish.
Here is a photo of the front and the back.

Isaac with hair

Some hair has finally been added. I'm getting there. Since this photo I have started on the background. Had some difficulty getting the right color. Finally settled on purples, from light in the top right hand corner to very dark on the bottom left. I hope it will be OK. I will post a photo soon.

 Here I have started to add some hair. I needed to get the skin tones below his hair sorted out. Too dark and you wouldn't be able to differentiate between his hair and his face. Too light and there would be no hair shadow. 

Here I have added a shadow line to the left side [his left] of his face.

I still have some tweaking to do but I will wait and see what it looks like when finished, so I can have a good look at it.

I like to take lots of photos. You tend to see more on a photo.

Isaac

In this, my second portrait rug, I have decided to implement April deConick’s   way of doing portraits, based on value rather than colour alone. April says; “It is based on the concept that the eye focuses on differences in value and intensity, more than differences in color.”

Within  each area of value I am using about 4-5 colours of the same value, rather than just one skin toned colour. The colours may include, pinks, purples, red, blues. As long as they are of the same value I will use them in that one area. It is also a great way of using up your stash.

A good way of knowing whether your colours are of the same value is to sort them into groups- i.e light pinks, creams, blues, mauves and so on in the light group. Do the same for light mediums, mediums, dark mediums and darks. Then take a monochrome photo of each group. Any that are not of the same value will easily show up as either darker or lighter. Put those with your other groups of values.

In the photos you will see this colour combination. I am very happy with the way this is working and will keep you up to date with photos. 

 My pattern traced onto the backing

 I start with the eyes, then the mouth.

 Once I have the main features hooked, I hook the light values first, then the dark, and finally the medium values.

Finally...

Well girls, I am finally getting there. The hooking part is finished. Just a few little tweaks, the pressing and the binding. I don't know which method I will use for that yet. I'm thinking about it.
anyway, it will be completely done before the S & C show in October. I think I am quite happy with it.
Hubby keeps telling me I've got to put in some teeth. He thinks it looks like he has no teeth. I tried but have a lot of trouble getting that right. I have hooked some but they seem to overtake the mouth and look more like horse teeth. Maybe I need to use some yarn and just hook an illusion, I don't know. Any ideas are welcome.

Hubby Rug

I have finally got around to working on my hubby rug again. Since the last stage I have started on his shirt and on the background. I had to dye a special blue/grey for the shirt. I just boiled different shades of blues and some dark grey together to remove some of the dye. I then added some blue and black together and added that as well, adding one piece of wool back in at the time. The darkest first and the lightest when there was very little dye left in the pot. It worked out well. / I am quite happy with the colour of the background also. It is black and antique black/green. Lots more to do, but hopefully it will be finished by the end of October for the Stitches and Craft show.
I am also working on my Love Rug; one more picture to go, but I'll post that when it's off the frame as it takes too much to sew it back on. Happy hooking :))