Grateful for a STARRug!

Maria Barton, of STAR Rugs was a swap partner for me in a recent AAPG swap. She sent me so many wonderful things. In fact, this picture doesn't show two of the three pieces of wool. In rearranging all the wonders I moved the book, in front of the fanned out wools.

A lovely pattern with two kats and a ball. As is so often true with our boys, Bob and KirbyKat, one is happy and playful and the other does NOT want to join in the fun. In real life this often devolves into some sort of spat, but with this rug it will be a lot of fun to create, and part of my growing "keeper" stack of cat rugs. I had taken my unfinished KirbyKat rug to Discovery Green Market last weekend, where it created some possible interest in a purchase. No can do ~ selling rugs of our family cats just isn't something I'll do.

The punchneedle piece is wonderful, and Maria actually showed it on her blog too. http://starrugcompany-maria.blogspot.com/2010/02/photobucket_14.html I was the lucky friend in TX!♥ A lovely old fashioned cat with deep red heart and antique black background. My punch needle collection, which is awesome as they have come as gifts, includes items from Maria, Kelley, Betty, Debbie, and Chris. This is truly like owning a DiVinci, Homer, Van Gogh, Picasso, and a Degas. Not with regard to differences in style, but the quality of work and composition.

The wooly worms are the ones she sent for my antique black background(my first but probably not my last) in our current background challenge. Maria offered us two designs, as she did in the earlier PRHG challenge. It is currently in progress, so not even a sneak peek. The earlier challenge birthed my deeper understanding of what beauty could be found in rugs with as is and hand dyed wool combined. At that point, because of limited choices in color available to me, I was still doing what I think of as my coloring book phase. Maria's challenge gifted each of the participants with 400 or so worms of many colors. 10 or so of each of 40 colors... What an eye opener!

In this challenge we mailed worms to each of the participants, in a color they selected but hadn't used for a background before. Wonky old me had never used the ideal prim background, antique black! So I'm having an equally elevating experience in this challenge. I have used black before, but as specific things like a slate board or space in the left hand panel of my retirement rug. The space section was closest to what I'm doing for antique black.

The book was one of the items I spent time with during the opening of the box. Before moving on to other treasures, leafed through it. So many great items, this is going to be my "lesson plan" for Olivia's early projects, if she is interested. If not she still will learn how to thread a needle, sew on a button, stitch out a simple sampler. :)

Thank you so much Maria, you have my heartfelt thanks!