Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Bullseyes - Day Three

I am the type of girl who works best with a deadline. I blame it all on my mother - I've inherited it from her. I've told myself and others that I'm going to finish off two new purses by the end of July....and if I can just maintain my current momentum, I think it's totally doable.

I hooked some more last night.....and I've gotta say that I'm really loving this new design. It's so simple....and there is lots of room for playing around with colour. I've also enjoying the marblized wools that I'm hooking into the background.


Since I seldom pay attention to “how much” wool I use, I really had no idea if I had enough of my marblized wool for the background. How do you know if you have enough wool? Here's what I do....

I assemble what I think will be an adequate amount of background wool. I divide each piece into 4 equal pieces (by cutting notches) , and rip off 1/4 of each of them. I cut up all of the torn pieces of wool (=1/4 of all of the wool)....and begin hooking. If I am able to hook 1/4 of my piece (or 1/2 of one side of a purse), before cutting any of the remaining wool, then I'm pretty sure that I will have enough. If I don't have enough to hook 1/4 of the area, I add some more wool to the mix. I check again at the 1/2 way mark, making sure that at least half of the area has been hooked before cutting any more wool (i.e. 1/2 of the original amount). And, because sometimes you tend to pack more (or less) and pull your loops higher (or not), I check again at the 3/4 mark. There is nothing worse than nearing the end of your project and realizing that you don't have enough wool, so the sooner you know that you won't have enough, the sooner you can correct the problem and start blending in the new additions....
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P.S. I keep forgetting to take a picture of the inspiration piece - I will try to do that again tonight...