Livvie's Birthday rug is Finished, Bound, Whipped and Steamed!

With still 2 months and one half I have finished completely the rug I'm making for Livvie's 3 birthday. It is a design by Karen Kahle, Primitive Spirits. The rug is called "Waterlilies", and I fell in love at first sight with it.
Maria helped me to find lots of luscious blues, lavenders, and heathery purple tones when I was at rug camp last May. To that I added a variety of colors from my TX palette, mostly the shades found in the blossoms. The sky is one of my jam jar dye jobs, using my reformulated blue.

The largest frog, closer to the blooms has a number of shades of green. Sadly, I'd run out of most of them when it was time to hook the other two croakers. .. So the rug sat for awhile then at the Kirby Hookin last July, I found the perfect blending green and purple wool. That worked both for lines of water, and for the submerged bodies of the two frogs poking their eyes above water.

Didn't make too many changes from the way the pattern was drawn on Monk's Cloth. Added the little rainbow shapes at the sides, and although it is difficult to see, I used the adjacent colors changing as I moved along the sides. There is also some type of insect, that froggie 3 has captured with his long sticky tongue. Like my rugs to have some science in them. At the bottom, I hooked Grandma Loves You, as my way of signing this rug. The outside of the rug was zigzagged about 1.5 inches from the edge of the design, wrapped around large soft cotton cording, and then whipped with a luscious yarn that is hand painted in Peru. The blues, purples, oranges, and browns blend well, and I think set the rug off perfectly!