Seven simple ways to bring more beauty into your life.

Good Morning,

My son came in my studio this week and loved a rug I had on the wall. After years and years of seeing my rugs, him loving one still matters a lot to me. He used to sit on my knee while I hooked my early ones.

I am so proud of him, that as a grown man he loves beauty. He is often working on renovation projects and he always considers beauty. He always makes his own decisions and things always look great. I mentioned it to him one day, complementing him and he off handedly said, "Growing up the way I did, it is hard not too."

Considering the beauty around us is an important part of living, especially today as we spend a great deal in our own places.

Perhaps it is just a twig of forsythia forced into bloom on the kitchen table, or a rock with a bit felted wool glued on the bottom acting as a door stop or a coat of white paint on a door trim. We can love and nurture the spaces around us. It can be small things that enrich the rooms we live in. When that space is enriched, we are enriched.

I think the real thing is to consider beauty. To think about it as you make things, as you lay a throw at the end of your bed, or plate up your supper. When we make things beautiful, we feel it in our hearts. It lifts our spirit.

Beauty is different for everyone. What one person finds lovely, another person might not be moved by at all.

I love my rugs. I love that other people love them. I love that my son loved this one. But I make my rugs so that I will love them. Every one of them.

I do understand though when someone is not in love with my rugs. I get it. Beauty is not the same for us all. And that's okay. What matters is that I love what I make.

It is important that you surround yourself with what you find to be beautiful; what you find to be true and what matters to you. When you consider beauty in your surroundings you consider yourself and everyone who shares that space with you.

When you make your rugs, make them beautiful to you. It does not matter that someone else will like them. That is just a bonus if they do. As you hook, make thoughtful decisions about how to make your rug as beautiful as it can be. Color, shape, form, texture, design and balance all come into play in creating beautiful rugs.

I encourage you to bring beauty into your life in every way you can. To consider what you love and act upon it. I have lived in the same old farmhouse for thirty years and it still amazes me what a bouquet of kitchen flowers from the yard can do to lift my spirits when I walk in there to make a cup of tea on a grey afternoon. In all those tiny ways we make our lives better. Being attuned to beauty around us will also make our rugs better. They go together.

Thank you for caring, and for reading my newsletter.

Deanne

PS. There is only 8 more days to sign up for DFS Design School if you want to learn how to design your own hooked rugs. It is only available for a limited time so Sign up below. Yay! Another way to bring beauty into your life.

PPS........

Seven Simple Ways to Bring More Beauty into Your Life

Leave art books on your coffee table (The library has lots).
Avoid watching violent shows and try some nature television (Netflix had a new David Attenborough program on colour in nature).
Take a walk on a quiet road where you can hear the birds sing.
Try some virtual visits to an art gallery or museum. Here is a link to a virtual tour of my show at the AGNS.
Arrange your wool beautifully on a shelf where you can see it.
Find a new recipe and cook something delicious. I have been following Half Baked Harvest and have made five new recipes lately.
Tidy up an area of your house. Dust, fluff the pillows, change around the pictures and sit down there with a cup of tea and take it all in and appreciate it.

May 09, 2021
Angela Davis
Tags: hooked rug hooking rug hooking

Are you a hugger?

Good Morning,

Last week my friend posted on facebook that she was missing hugs. At first I thought she was just kidding cause she never seemed much of a hugger to me. I wondered if she was being sarcastic or ironic so I texted her and said, " Were you kidding about being a hugger?" And she texted back "No, I love hugs. I just held back cause I knew you weren't a hugger." I like that about her. She understood. Some of us are huggers and some of are not so much.

For quite a few years I have not been a hugger. I know, it surprises me too. I used to be a hugger but somewhere along the way I became less and less comfortable with it. I only wanted to hug people when I felt a certain immediacy. Of course, I love to hug my kids and family. I need to feel really comfortable with someone before the hugging starts.

Of course Covid has changed all the hugging and hand shaking. We don't make any physical contact with each other out of concern for our own and other's personal safety. Now we have to social distance.

I don't have to get all stiff and rigid anymore when I go somewhere and wonder if it is going to be a hugging event. There is no worry about being caught off guard by a big unexpected hug.

I have always understood huggers. I used to be one when I was young. I get it, that desire to reach out and share your warmth. I know that feeling. I feel it sometimes too. Us non huggers sometimes get a bit of bad press as being distant or cool, but we are not. We are just more comfortable with a little space around us. We still feel that warmth, we just don't express it with a hug. We express it in words. small kindnesses, smiles, and lots of other ways.

This year we have all had to hold back on so many levels. We have missed the chance to share our love, to be with grandchildren, to share meals with friends, to gather, to be together. Weddings, graduations, funerals, the things that mark our lives have slipped by quietly, or been forsaken. We have lost our rituals. We have all had losses, some much deeper than others.

Even the simple hug between friends and loved ones has had to be set aside. All of this has happened in our effort to protect one another. We have kept our distance because we love.

The other night I got a text from Joe who works with me. It said, "Hug rugs, we are all missing hugs."

I thought to myself, "We are, we are all missing hugs, even you Deanne, you are missing that connection."

He said "A rug is kinda like a hug, soft and warm. It's been such a tough year, wouldn't it be great if we could mail each other hugs?"

And I thought, "We should do that!" Let's start a "Hug in a Rug" project. So we are startng it this week in the studio and on our Wild with Wool Facebook Page. I am including a set of downloadable patterns ( See below ) and tags here for you to use if you want to make some. The idea is that instead of a hug you can mail 4 by 4 inch mug rugs to people you care about...a hug in a rug.

I know so many of you love to give because that love is part of making. It is part of who we are as makers. We have this need to share ourselves and we pour ourselves into our rugs. These little 4 by 4 inch mug rugs are a great way to send someone you know a little hug in the mail. If you want you can join us on the facebook page a share your hug in a rugs there.

Thanks for Reading, I am glad you are there. Warm thoughts for you,

Deanne

PS. DFS Design School is now available if you want to learn how to design your own hooked rugs. It is only available for a limited time.

May 02, 2021
Angela Davis
Tags: gratitude hooked rug rug hookling rughooking

What would you like to learn about rug hooking? I am asking...

Good Morning,

This week I had a hike in Economy. We drove down a long dirt road through fields and woods until we turned right onto a narrow gravel road. We were far away from the community and I as continued I felt a little lonely, perhaps a little vulnerable. When we got out of the car and started into the woods, Katherine, my friend asked if the bears were out of hibernation yet. I just smiled to myself and said "Yes, I think they are."

We were on a small flat trail that wound around the narrow cove like a strand of wool. As we left the red cliffs on the waters edge we followed a carpet of green moss through the woods. We were alone in those woods, just us and whatever creatures were hiding away in the trees. That little fairy land of moss with the light shining through the trees made you feel like you were in Lord of the Rings. This fantastical landscape was there waiting for us just off the beaten path.

It took a little time to get there. An hours drive from home just to go for walk. At first we both thought perhaps we should just hike a trail nearer home. But we knew that perhaps it might be worth the effort so off we went.

We went to be by the sea. To walk along this rugged eroding coast of red rock and sand. We went to see, to watch those Bay of Fundy swells and feel the hard wind on our faces.

That's what it's like. You have to put in a little extra effort sometimes to experience something new. You have to drive an hour, go a little further, push yourself a bit. This is true in your rugs too. It's certainly true in mine. I have to add a new colour to the water, one I rarely use, just to see it. I have to create new movement in the sky so I can find a new way of seeing it.

When I was heading down that dirt road in the back of beyond I got this feeling that I just wanted to turn back. That's normal to get those little twinges of uncertainty when you push yourself a bit. It's part of the process of learning, of discovery, of finding the new.

Feelings come and feelings go. Remembering this always makes me feel good when I am having a feeling that I don't like. I know for a fact that feelings pass. Sometimes you have to hold them in your heart and carry them with you for a bit. Sometimes you have to push through them, past them. But they come and go.

Remember this when you are making your rugs. Sometimes it will feel like what you are doing is not working but you cannot always trust that. Sometimes you have to push through and see where it takes you.

It took me to a new land of green. One I had never seen before.

I hope you have a good week, that you discover something new. Thank you for reading,

Deanne

PS. We now have Cheticamp frames in stock and we have gears back in stock too if you want to make your own.