We Are Going For Gold With 2 Get Together's This Month.

We are having two Rug Day get togethers this month. Ha ha ha! It comes from not being able to accommodate everyone and then Anne kindly jumped in and said she didn't mind hosting two. We'll meet on this Saturday 13th July and the 27th of July at Warrandyte. I might be able to get my Footy Rug finished so I can go back to my big Uzbeki style rug (I'm always doing way too many things at once).
If you are interested in coming along, email me at r.m.square@bigpond.com or message/call 0410876096. If you call, leave a message if I don't answer or I'll think you are spam!
We've only just had a lovely day at Anne Marie's new place too, so the keen-ness is showing. That's because it's so enjoyable and the company is good!

Old rug I bought 25 years ago.

Another by the same woman. Her husband had heaps of them at St. Andrew's market one day and I bought four. Crimpelene, for the most part.

Joy working on her stair rugs. You can see her small oil painting in the background. 

Two rugs of mine, vying for attention amongst the knitting, the embroidering, the dressmaking and Oh, the working and cleaning.

A Quiet Day At The Patch

Saturday 25th of May was a quiet one at my home in The Patch (Victoria, Australia). Anne, Katherine and myself (Robyne) were joined briefly by my friend Nicole, who had a little go at hooking. I want to convert her of course, but two dogs, four young boys and a full time job keep her busy enough and she said she despairs of any poor rug that lays on their floors just now. I do assure her that children grow (and, shhh, eventually leave home).

I hope the rest of our team were too busy to get along, rather than didn't realise we had a get together. Sooorrryy!! I forgot to send out a reminder....

Katherine working on her Magpie Rug (below). 

Getting there with the Footy Rug. I find if I leave it in the lounge room, I go to it more often, rather than away from the tele in the sewing room. Boring!

Nicole and I are each making 'Calla', a lovely patterned shawl. I dyed some Bendigo Woollen Mills alpaca in two shades of this lovely teal. Mine (the darker) is finished (I started way ahead of Nicole, who is the far better and more dedicated knitter).
We're going to swap our leftover yarn at the end to make complimentary cuffs.

Jennifer Walton, who joined in in spirit from the Atherton Tablelands in FNQ, has finished her first combined proggy/hooky rug! Excepting for the binding (which will no doubt be done by now).
Such finesse! Jen said she spent an aeon preparing the flowers beforehand. So proud! 

Calla. The colour is much darker than this really. It was useful yesterday, out and about in the freezing cold.

Next Get Together at The Patch October 20th

You are welcome to join us for our next Rug Day, at my house (Robyne) in The Patch, on the 20th of October. Give me a call on 0410876096 for directions.

I'll make soup and we all usually bring a little something for the table (go easy people, we don't need too much) and then we can have fun! Yay!

Inspiration for my next Proggy Rug, although you wouldn't pick it if you saw mine.
I have noticed my fabric pile getting smaller and it makes me very happy! This one will include my Mum's clothes and fabrics, some of Grandma's material and loads of stuff  I've had for years and years. It's very satisfying and my long term plan is to use ALL of my stash. Good old Proggy!

October meeting of the Yarra Valley Rug Makers

Hi friends of the Yarra Valley Rug Makers

Next Saturday 28th October will be our next meeting, to be held in Warrandyte. Hope to see you. New members always welcome. Please use the contact form on the right side of the page if you are interested. 

July meeting of the Yarra Valley Rug Makers

Hi friends and followers of the Yarra Valley Rug Makers.
I know I have been amiss of late in posting. Time seems to get away from me and before I know it a month...or two has passed  and oops, no posts.

We had a most wonderful meeting in the cold of the Victorian winter in Warrandyte in July. However we were toasty warm in front of, not one but would you believe two lovely wood heaters in Anne's home in Warrandyte.

Our group was small but that never seems to matter much. The conversation was lively and interesting as always.
 As we continued to work away on our rugs- Joy on her Psalm 23 rug, Anne Marie on her yarn hooked chair pad, Anne on her paisley rug and Chris on her In the Beginning rug, we chatted away and enjoyed a lovely winter lunch of soup and goodies.
We are looking forward to having our long time member Robyne join us again very soon, after an abscence of more than twelve months. We all miss you Robyne.


Before we knew it, the day was over and off we went, each to their own homes.

 Regular followers may remember the oriental rug I have been working on for the last couple of years. Well, I thought I would post an update for you. Two thirds finished, one third to go.

July meeting of the Yarra Valley Rug Makers

July already. The shortest day of the year has come and gone, however it is certainly still chilly enough to 'rug' up in front of the fire with good friends and interesting conversation.

If you have not been to one of our meetings, please come and join us in Warrandyte on Saturday, around 10ish, please leave a message in the contact form box on the side. We would love to see you.

Hi Everyone

Our next meeting will be held in the Coal Creek gallery at Korumburra, on Saturday 24th September.

We hope to see as many people as possible there. It is well worth a visit, to see the many beautiful rugs on display until Sunday. 

At the same time, if you haven't already, you get to meet the members of the Yarra Valley Rug Makers group.  See you there. :)

Meeting of the Yarra Valley Rug Makers

With only three of us present we nonetheless had a great time together. The first couple of hours were spent discussing our upcoming Hand Hooked Rug Exhibition of our work at Coal Creek, Korumburra, Vic.
As you can see [on left] our graphic designer, Joy,  did a fantastic job of designing a poster for the event and as yours truly- Chris, lives close to the venue it will be my job to place them around the district to give the exhibition as much exposure as we can.
We hope you will come and support us by attending this very first exhibition of the Yarra Valley Rug Makers.
After lunch Joy and Anne got stuck into their rugs while I caught up with some work that needed doing.
 If you would like more information about our exhibition, please do not hesitate to leave a comment.

Joy's stair tread

June Catch Up (by Robyne)

This is my own first get together for many months, and it was very nice to see Jen, Joy and Anne at Anne's amazing, craft-filled house in Warrandyte. The fires were burning, the soup delicious and we chatted and worked on our rugs for the whole day.

Jen fitting in some sun-burst activity. We all find it hard to find time to rug and so these day's together give us the time, uninterrupted excepting by lunch and some happy Ooohing and Aaahing.

I've been so tied up with family commitments too, that it felt a rare treat to take a whole day to go and play with the gals. A pity Chris wasn't present (sniff), or some other's who are more likely than I to be there.

Joy's second stair-tread rug, 'The sheep on the heather' (I made that name up) is coming along. Joy has included some Wenslydale (Is that right Joy?) wool into the right hand sheep.
We are all on a mission to find a Heath Robinson solution to have her family and friends avoid actually walking on the stairs once they're carpeted. Perhaps a Mary Poppins solution?

The heath and the distant mountains...

My proggy rug is nearly done (even more so, as I write this). My sciatica will hopefully move on when it is, as I take way too much (cleaning) time at it after dinner in the evening and the nerve is making me pay. Pretty-well every night, I get sucked into it. It's killing me.
My hubby is going to make me a standing-up pair of trestle legs, so I can either prop on a stool or stand up to work. 

The back is always clearer huh.
A couple of nights ago I sacrificed my over-pj's-wear kimono because it's exactly the right colour for some background. It was wearing out in any case, so... I did like wearing it though...
I've discovered audio books. This rug has seen me through the entire 8 Outlander books and now I'm onto 'All Quiet on the Western Front'. Wow! What a book that is. Amazing account and so human.
The audio's are good for making vacuuming a nothing rather than a bore too. 

Hey... I notice Anne didn't photograph her own rug....

Our April meeting in Hastings

Anne's sunflower proggy

Chris' Bird of Paradise [Strelitzia] rug

The Yarra valley Rug Makers had a meeting with a difference yesterday 9th April. Only three of us were present at The Westernport Craft Fair, run as a yearly fundraiser by the local Hastings Uniting Church. Many people came past the YV booth where Anne and I [Chris] demonstrated the genteel craft of making a hooked rug.

Some had a go at pulling some loops and two young girls just loved it and got the hang of it very quickly. Children are a delight to teach and catch on quickly. Anne's lovely sunflower proggy rug attracted a lot of attention also with its colourful contrasts.

As most of us rug hookers have discovered, many people confuse it with latchet hook rug making.
It was a long day and we were glad to go home at the end of it.

Rug meeting of 5th March, 2016

We have been silent for a while, I know. Our group attendance has been low the last couple of times, due to other commitments.

Our last meeting was at Anne's home and even though small, as always we had a wonderful time.

Anne, Jenny, and I [Chris] were there all day with Joy joining us at mid-day. It was great to see her.
Joy showed us the lovely gossamer scarf she was knitting, as she continued on with her stair tread mats, and Jenny her Stairway to the stars rug, Anne and I had a great discussion in her craft room, which would make anyone jealous, [only kidding]. We talked about the upcoming Craft Fest in Hasting where the YVR will be demonstrating and teaching 'make and take' projects for interested people.

Jenny's stairway to the sun

And in September we will be holding a Rug exhibition at the Coal Creek Gallery in Korumburra. This will be ongoing for a fortnight. Hopefully lots of tourists will be in attendance at that time. As I- personally, will be holding workshops at Milpara House Korumburra during term two, we hope this will also make a difference to the attendance, as slowly people get to know what this wonderful craft is all about. I will also be holding workshops in Lang Lang and hopefully Wonthaggi. My aim with this exercise is to raise money for missions and make rug hooking more widely known. I also hope to do some workshops for children and adults at a local church youth group.
Checkout my Facebook page HERE for details.

Joy's finished first tread and a start on the second

The day after the Craft Fest in Hastings I will be doing Rug hooking demonstrations at the local CWA craft fair in Loch. So even though slowly, we are working on expanding Rug Making in Victoria.

After lunch we actually got to work and did some hooking. Anne worked on her Fowl mood rug and yours truly on my Bird of Paradise mat.


On 15th March, I had a lovely visit from a very keen, beginner rug hooker from WA. Irene had visited our friend Miriam in Milton earlier and decided she wanted to take up proggy rug making. She and her husband were in Vic visiting their daughter and her family, so I was delightfully inundated with three adults and four children. The children were very interested in learning how to make a proggy mat, so the three girls had a go and a great job they did too.

Back to our meeting. We went on late on this day as we had so much to talk about., but thoroughly enjoying each others company.
See you next month. Hope you'll join us and learn how to make a rug. :)

February Meeting of the Yarra Valley Rug makers

Our group was very small- only four people, but the conversation was lively and interesting. No photos were taken at this meeting- sorry :( [I forgot, oops]

Joy was busily working her lovely stair tread rug number two. It was drawn and started and at the end of the meeting she had two lovely woolly sheep hooked in fleece and mohair. Very realistic indeed.

Sandra was working on her piped binding for Shaun the Sheep and Chris continued to work on her oriental rug. That was it really.

Sandra had to leave early as she had to arrange the flowers for her church for the following morning- Sunday, so she left with some additional lillies and crepe myrtle branches from our garden, aaaand, we do happen to have a photo of the arrangement that Sandra sent me the following day. Beautiful isn't it? I just had to show you all. Here it is, now you can enjoy them too. :)

February Meeting of the Yarra Valley Rug makers

It's that time of the month again folks.

The next meeting of the Yarra Valley Rug Makers will be held in Loch on Sat 13th Feb, 10 AM.

All welcome 

Linked by our love of rug making

 

Next meeting of the Yarra Valley Rug makers

The next and last meeting for the year will be held on Saturday, 19th December at Loch.

Please bring a plate to share for our Christmas breakup. 

All welcome. 

Oh come let us adore Him, Christ the Lord

Next meeting of the Yarra Valley Rug Makers

HELLO FRIENDS OF THE YARRA VALLEY RUG MAKERS

OUR NEXT MEETING WILL BE HELD NEXT SATURDAY, 14TH NOVEMBER,

AT ANNE'S HOME IN WARRANDYTE.

ALL WELCOME

September meeting of the Yarra Valley Rug Makers

Well, we certainly chose a most magnificent day to hold our meeting in Loch. It was sunny, with a light breeze and we were able to have the doors wide open in the rug room.

One of our biggest meetings yet, we had nine ladies present on the day, with three new ladies and Jenny's daugher who used the driving time to Loch to get her hours up in preparation for her driver's licence. It was lovely to have Esther with us.Welcome to the Yarra Valley Rug makers Jane, Anne Marie and Christine [not yours truly] and Esther. :)

With the Stitches and Craft show coming up at the Caulfield race course from 22nd to 25th October we had things to talk about; what to ring, volunteers to organize, rugs for display and so on. Click HERE if you want to find out more about the show

Our new member Anne Marie was working on a lovely proggy, while Jane started a small rug of a bird and Christine completing the autumn leaf started at the workshop with Chris.

These ladies certainly catch on quickly. :)
It was great to see Robyne again after some time being absent. She showed us her newest rug designed by herself, which she is hooking on a synthetic backing from Bec Anderson. It is going to be a real show stopper this rug.
 

Anne was working on her Gene Shepherd, Fowl Mood while Jen continued her Tightrope to the sun rug.

I, Chris seemed to be running around making coffees as we were a little limited in space for the nine of us and it was easier this way. I worked my her oriental rug for about half an hours out of the day I think. But that's OK :)
I also helped Jane get started on her first rug. Some of our women who had not been at the last meeting had a wonderful time going through our bags of woolen fabric donated by Judy from Strath Matters. We have decided that rather than divide it up, it will be there for anyone who needs wool for a particular project to take what they need.
Sandra is coming to the end of her first rug of Shaun the sheep. Looking great Sandra.

Sorry about the messy Blog today. It won't publish how I have arranged it in the draft. Hhhhh