Half Complete Fish Shoal and Dining Room Disaster

My fish shoal is 1/3 complete. I made 16 strands of four, out of a total of 42. This creates low fullness on the 6 inch diameter ring I am staging the fish strands on. I am doing this diligently to avoid hanging the chandelier. I have cleaned it. I have the bulbs. I need to ask for help, and I have no problem asking. The problem is no one wants to lend a hand. 

Sixteen strands of 4 fish. Looks sparse
and still tangles.

It's okay. I have been known to weed my friends' driveways and sweep up confetti and other thankless jobs because later, my friends would hold the ladder as I get another plastic bag out of my tree or loosen that screw I can't budge. Whatever. I'll do it alone. It is cemented to the ceiling. Fine. I am trying to remove it and I want to cry, and this will make it that much more glorious when I finally achieve it, I must say so to myself to keep from doing myself in. 

It still tangles. The fish are disappointingly tiny. They hardly sparkle. Many fish are non-symmetrical and will always seem to be swimming in circles. I am not in a great mood.

The old fixture is down - cue religious music. It required the use of a spatula. The new chandelier is HEAVY and I need help putting it up. There it is. That is why it stayed on my floor and became covered in dust. The dream of a new chandelier. I have not been getting what I want lately. I think it's part of the aging process. People flock to you when you're young and beautiful. Become a bit janky around the edges and suddenly, you lose all appeal. It is men and their frustrating lack of ability to see women as people. They did it then and they're doing it now. What can I do but persevere?

I am past the halfway point: 25 strands out of 42 total. They're so small. I liked the overlap that the inspiration fixture had and the basis in art also had. Here they are for reference:

In comparison, my fish are sparse and overfished to the point of colony collapse. I still have the flowers to fall back on. Oh, maybe the layering of the fixture will give the illusion of fullness. I am noticing how narrow the inspiration fixture is compared to mine and the fish in the inspo are about a third of the width. My fish are minnows and not worth catching!

Fish Work - Going For It

A good view of my lighting design. 
There should be 48 fish here, but 
the bubble takes spot #48

I will have a convertible chandelier. It will feature plastic flowers some days and beaded fish others. I am putting off more urgent matters and it doesn't matter. I am making my own world and I only have myself to consult with. 

What a nightmare! Making the fish is easy and fun. Hanging these MFs is a whole 'nother thing. Keeping them from becoming a tangled disaster is proving almost impossible. So here is why we seldom see such things as dangling chandeliers. I've made some 50 of them and strung them onto jump rings and dangled them and they're all in a rat's nest right now. Frustrating.

I know that I write this to no one. No one listens anymore. I pay my therapist to listen and I can see the reflection off her glasses as she surfs the web during our sessions. Tootie Pie, forget it. People's attention spans can shrink all they want, as long as they can greet me in the store and make eye contact at the register. I guess that is too much to ask.

All this talk and no where to direct it. Back to the fish!

I found a cord by Kreinik which is metallic, meaning it holds its shape better than string, but isn't as easily caught like the wire. Fiddling with the fishing line was way tedious. The cord is the solution and it's iridescent! So it's back to making the fish, which is soothing and I'm becoming an expert. The key is to keep the loops from forming kinks, so keep your wire in a U-loop and not a loop-dee-loop. The cord is #12 in Crystalline. I am looking for my blue ball beads to look like bubbles. I think it will be adorable if I ever put up the new fixture and finish the other 200 fish to hang.

Still stringing the next group of 4 
strings of 4 fish, so only 32 pictured
here. I need to not add the strands
as I go because BALANCE

Obviously the fuller version looks better, but the fishes' tails are catching even this sparsely populated. It kind of makes you appreciate how they either don't collide IRL or they are so slimy they simply slide off each other. 

Bonus Marimekko Free-Form Rugs

A view of rectangular mate reflected in mirror

Beauties. I thought that hemming the contours of these rugs would be disastrous and I was pleasantly surprised. Because I tried to hem the rectangular base rug with yarn instead of thread, most of my problems with this simple job could have been avoided. Having switched to quilting thread makes things so much easier. Like with the rectangle, I couldn't manage to figure out the whip stitch so I just straight stitched both. That was another part of the problem with the larger rug.

So now the question is, do I do one more, in kelly? I think it's time to give the kitchen some love with the new chandelier and cushions (finally for the banquet).  

A rather unfortunate
worn spot on oak floors

Arial view reflected

Let's Get SideTracked with Paper Flowers

It's probably a rose based on the foliage

As if still maintaining a blog isn't throwback enough, I currently work above, get this, a Barnes and Noble store. This hanger-on always has paper flowers for sale and, well, my bedroom has two vases, one of which has a fallen-off bit of my pampas grass stuffed in it and nothing in the other. Also, it appears that Winblaad's Tusind og en nat bride is holding, let's call it a peony. So, combine these two things plus a visit to the library for a book called Paper Flower Art and I am distracted again. The bonus of this new tangent is I need not buy one thing. I used:

• 

  My paper peonies and
  the amazing effects
  alcohol inks can give. It is 
  giving off rose vibes without
  manipulation!

  craft paper
• 93% isopropol alcohol
  
• food coloring
  
• alcohol ink - Ranger alcohol pearl alchemy and was in Clearance at Michael's
• crepe paper
• iridescent pigment powder - Jacquard micro-pearlescent
• craft paint - Americana Hauser Medium Green
• hot glue, hot glue, hot glue

All of this I had on hand. The 93% alcohol was bought previously to use the iridescent pigment powder to try to make my plastic flowers iridescent. I have been on an iridescence kick for a bit. After trying to brush it, spray it, and just dump it onto the plastic, I realized that the one alcohol ink I did buy to see if the problem was my formulation (it wasn't) did not color the plastic bottle it was packaged in and therefore, my experiment was never going to work. Why does it say on the bottle that it works on non-porous materials? 

Now, the book tells me to buy 180g crepe paper from Italy, but I have left over crepe paper streamers from Tootie Pie's piñatas, and so I just used that. It doesn't stretch or cup like the Italian stuff, sure, but it looks 100 times better than the ones sold in Barnes and Noble which are just cut from tissue paper. Oh, and you get to push the crepe paper roll into the alcohol solution which makes each roll unique. And your hands red. I even used gel food coloring, which didn't mix well into the alcohol and so it looked like the roll had deep red pustules, but with time, the pustules spread out across the paper creating a lovely pink. I doused this same roll with the yellow-gold alcohol ink that I actually purchased and my homemade iridescent concoction. After drying, I wrapped the crepe paper around my hand 10 times or so, and then cut out peony petals. I also read that you need a styrofoam ball to make the bud, but I just wadded up some of the leftover crepe paper from my cutting.

I used card stock for my stems and leaves and lots of hot glue to attach them and the petals. Each peony was created using different crepe papers. One red one took a bleach bath, and the white got the above-mentioned pustule treatment. I did the red for the bath on all, but the gel one got a second dosing with what was supposed to be orange, but just became pinker and yellow - no real blending of gel colors there. I have one more roll and bought more food coloring to try again. Here they are: 

I sprinkled some petals around the 
vase to make it look legit

This seems like a good way to make money! The worse looking ones sold at B&N are $8 a stem. I created four stems, including a bud. I actually like mine better than the cupped ones in Paper Flower Art, despite mine not having pistels and stamen. The author, Jesse Chui, used double sided crepe paper and for her stems, tubing. Her pistels were created from floral tape - I'll leave this for the clients to ask for. 

I have now a bowl full of petals, but this will only create 2 stems most likely. My version's stems are awful and I bought clear tubing for my refrigerator from an aquarium store years ago, so maybe! This is currently pure profit but if I end up purchasing supplies for Tootie Pie's room, who knows? If I sold my bouquet above at $5 a stem that's a nice $20, but I do believe I spent an inordinate amount of time drying my crepe paper and all sorts of other inefficiencies and it took the better part of a day. A fun day, but $20 a day, man, that won't get you far.

Latch Hook Bonus Rugs and Another Chandelier Pre-Contemplation

Hemming the rectangular Marimekko was too straightforward - let's add curves. I would have liked to have created a larger rug than the 3x5 feet that I ended up working on FOR-EVER, but these mini flower rugs are so adorable and quick to turn out.

Sweet little flower rugs

Also, this is the end, again, of my yarn. Look how tantalizingly close I came to finishing off all of the Sulfur/Chartreuse! I now want to create a freeform flower rug for Tootie Pie's room. I wanted to do a pink tiger skin rug, surrounded by flowers, but now think just a flower. But, my next project will be the lighting fixture installed in the dining area. Here are some of my ideas for the dangly parts for the hooks:

Is it just me, or is no one else noticing anything other than the floaty gathering of objects in the air? We have two arrangements that are orderly above, and two look freeform and natural. Because my floaty gathering is not uniform, lucky me gets the natural arrangement, which will admittedly be easier; I picture one person on top lowering or raising one object until it's perfect, and then what? Knots always make the string ever so smaller and the joy of the arrangements is their perfect hanging. Not for me. I love the neon green behind the boringly dressed mannequins. I have been collecting hand cut plastic flowers for ages and I wanted the string to contain the color, but the magic of these mobiles is that they seem to float, so clear thread it is.

Of course, the two I like best are the naturally hung ones. The one I like best is the first one with the knit blobs, which would be the hardest to create and may look too heavy for the space. I am debating nixing the hanging blooms, but this change in direction means I have cut out the clear plastic flowers for nothing. I also smoothed their edges and pierced them using the hot knife technique meaning I inhaled toxic vapors for nothing, too.

Here are my flowers:

And now that I've made an army of flowers, I want to switch to beaded fish and possibly a blue whale made of beads in an amalgamation of these:

Those tiny 3D fish! I'd need to make around 4,000 of them, but they seem really quick. I feel like fish should be translucent, and flowers not so much, but we're not going for realism. I feel like part of what makes the fish school chandy so cool is the size of the fish to the tiny diameter of the light. My chandelier is wider and so either the effect would disappear because the fish are too small, or I'd need to increase the size of the fish, but they're so adorable like minnows. She gave one fish a trout pout!

It will be flowers in the short term and we'll think about the fish. Do I really need another medium? I just added yarn, I cannot add beads!

LIC artist Eduardo Anievas Blue Fish. I need
iridescence, big googly eyes, and lots of these plump
little jewels

Cutting Gets Easier for Boontje Garland and Sputnik Light Homed

I added a chicken. The 
Queen Anne's lace lost
a tiny floret, ah, we'll say
a bear ate it

My knockoff Garland light is veering further from the inspiration. I collected more milk jugs and then free handed the following cut-outs:

It is getting easier to make my own designs and I added a bird. Tord Boontje never ventured into the fauna. Ha! This is a project that could never end, but since I ended up with an extra ColorCord and have plenty of lighting hardware in the basement, I may start to sell them. They don't melt if you stay away from incandescent bulbs. 

And now we need a slate
grey or shamrock starburst
ceiling medallion to set 
off the crisp blossoms

I suppose my apprenticeship ends and my artistry begins. Although, it hardly looks bushier since I added the new stems, but there was a bare patch that they covered. I love this.

The cutting will continue at a greater pace since I discovered how to make cottage cheese. I am still trying to perfect my yogurt and had success once out of three attempts. The milk that doesn't turn into yogurt becomes cottage cheese and I get the jug afterwards. Pretty much perfect if I could manage to set yogurt consistently, but hopefully soon.

Too high now and cord
isn't hung correctly

Also love, my Sputnik. It is bright. I need to extend the wire again. For reference, it was shorten, lengthen, shorten, and now lengthen again. 

Wire correct length and cord
swagged. Now I need to
introduce more fuchsia
to this corner

Latch Hook a Custom Rug

Rugs these days are pretty cheap, and I use both meanings of cheap. I found a beautiful looped pile ocean themed rug in yuppie central's garbage night, but upon unrolling at home, it was pulled by cat claws and, well... more cat activity occurred sadly. If I'm being honest, though, an underwater theme is great for my hall, but maybe a bit too predictable for this Ocean Stater. I need something quirkier and less practical than sparkly corals. I needed custom.

Top, left most orange flower looks
like Chicken Little in profile

It all seemed so easy in the planning phases. As ever, there were fits and starts and do-overs. I believe that my yarn issues goes back to my original mock-up image which, in retrospect, had white space columns along both long edges. In the end, I have 5 Hobbii white skeins and one complete chartreuse left over after the yarn reordering. Since I knew my lengths were short for the kelly and chartreuse, it was inevitable that I'd be buying more yarn. Now I can use my loom with the leftovers. Yes, I have a loom, and it is Barbie sized and made of plastic. It came with the mechanized loom inventor's bust, who years ago adorned my 6th grade moon landing rocket ship and never found his way home to the Industrial Revolution. He hung out inside the Apollo behind the circular window that was somehow convex and gave the impression that he was more than just shoulders and head. Also, and this was appropriate for my population, he was brown. Not in actual life, but the bust is brown and he looks like a person of color instead of a pasty Englishman. He is hanging out with a plush foiled astronaut and, this was 6th grade we're talking about, Sponge Bob. Those were good days. I feel my academy owes its 3-year Spirit Week domination to my creations. My favorites were the cities of New Orleans and Dubrovnik. The moon landing was the culmination of the 60s and I loved my decade because A) I am from this decade and B) Sesame Street! I know there were many huge milestones in the 60s, but from my standpoint, ain't no bigger cultural sensation than the Muppets!

Even Tootie Pie is impressed! I hemmed it, painstakingly, and will wait to trim it until it needs its first refresh and I'm prepared for it to shed all over again. It is still white!

Post mortem: costs

• Original purchase of $151.85 on wool, backing, and hook
• Supplemental purchases of $80-something of extra wool ($27.21) in Hobbii Shamrock (3) and black (1), and $55 for 2 skeins of Sulfur and 3 skeins of gold fusion from Cascade.

    This ought to be lower, but I bought too much white by half and the incorrect sized hook. 

Post mortem: technique and tools

    If anything, the Hobbii yarn was more consistent in thickness and tied for knots with the more reputable Cascade. Learn from my mistakes and splurge on the more expensive canvas. The crummy one I bought from Dimensions had glue blobs, some squares broke, and the edges were an uneven nightmare. When hemming, you really only need 2 or 3 good border squares. Use actual thread instead of handy extra yarn! Oh, and if you have a large canvas, roll it to make the hooking easier. This will tear up the back of the hooked areas and also your couch, if you decide that it is the perfect hooking surface instead of the non-catching kitchen table. The canvas will definitely cut you. And, if you don't heed my warning and go with the Dimensions canvas, it will be simultaneously too stiff AND pliable, in a way that cannot be described. There are different sized hooks and chances are, you will pick up one for 3.5 gauge by accident.

Post mortem: accomplishment

    I already miss my latching project. The planned mini rugs will be a quick and fun hook, but the hemming should be a debacle. Enough faffing about! 

I do love it. I will have an outdoor photo shoot of the rug where I attempt to make it look twee and wear cool shoes and pigeon toe my feet or whatever the kids today go for. 

It would be easy to buy a rug. Probably cheaper. I have 3 other rugs, and one has emotions with it and the others are disposable. My Persian rug from my grandparents will always be my prized possession for many reasons - the one I like to brag of is that because of sanctions, you haven't been able to buy a Persian rug since my Nana was in the department store selecting ours. Other reasons are its huge scale, the beautiful natural colors, and of course, the thinness and overall fineness of it. I cannot imagine how long this took! The amount of knots is incalcucuable.

Impressing Myself - Rewiring a Sputnik Ceiling Fixture to a Swag Fixture

I've been lowballing
tri-state residents for
years before someone
accepted!

I failed Electrical Engineering. First problem was it was three times a week at 8 a.m. Second problem was over confidence. I was certain I understood how to make the light blink using ands and ors and parallel and serial and, well... It wouldn't work. And I experienced it again when I found my dream chandelier, the Sputnik! I have a ceiling fixture taking up valuable floor space for the dining area, so this will go in Tootie Pie's room, but we're keeping the fuchsia chandelier. This Sputnik needed to be switched from a ceiling light to a swag. 

Most tutorials say to just switch out the ceiling end connection with an outlet, wrap the correct wires into the screw socket, and voila! But, I don't have an outlet on my ceiling and so I needed a longer cord. I originally bought the clear kind, but didn't realize that the Sputnik is grounded and the transparent kind I bought only had the 2 prongs, so back it went. The second time I went for something special, since I realized after I bought the transparent cord that it didn't have an on-off switch, it wasn't grounded and the fixture was, AND I found much prettier cords. Everything at ColorCord.com is beautiful!

So pretty. I need an 
extension cord in this color!

It took forever, but I figured out how to get the canopy off. Luckily, the chandy has a wire to attach it to the ceiling so that the weight doesn't pull out the wires. But the canopy wasn't just attached to the bar, but also to the wire that holds the weight, which prevented me from getting it off, until I figured out that there's a button on the bottom of the wire attachment that allows it to come off. If I hadn't figured that out, there would be an extra piece at the base of the wire, because I could only manage to move this adjustable canopy finish cap forward to make the wire shorter and shorter. I backed it out okay eventually because it had a hidden button. For a moment, I thought I'd need the jaws of life or a blowtorch to remove the canopy. And, since this is a knock off Sputnik, the wiring was not standard, and my electrical skills are weak. It is a 24 light fixture, and I ended up having to take each arm's wires out and marking the hot wires. Just like in Electrical Engineering 101, I thought my first attempt was golden and the second! I even visited the hardware store to purchase a current tester, but they were double what I was willing to pay. This was the incentive I needed and I did it right finally! If everything was easy, there would be no sense of accomplishment. It works!

In the end, I got the chandelier for $50, plus I had to buy the cord with the switch and a grounded outlet, which cost me $43.93, and new wire nuts cost $2.99. Labor was free but not inexpensive. Under $100. Not including 24 light bulbs. And, a ceiling hook, which, I already had, but I bought another - oops! I will probably eventually find wire nuts - it might be time to organize my hardware. And, a plug converter that I need now because my outlet isn't grounded! Such a rollicking success!

On the one hand, it is
not within the vernacular
of the room...

Now that it's installed, I don't love it! I have turned Tootie Pie's bedroom into a lighting showroom! Even taking into account the facts that it doesn't have the benefit of a full flight of bulbs and that the cord isn't swagged - it doesn't go. In the end, I should have not bothered with my Tord Boontje inspired creation and put the OTHER chrome, armed chandelier that has been on my living room floor into my room, and the Sputnik in the kitchen. The thought process is that the fixture that is on the floor has a base that mounts fixed to the ceiling. Both bedrooms have center ceiling wires and the chandeliers need to move, because we're tall people with little spatial awareness. But, what's done is done. In my next home, we will have 3 bedrooms, one of which will be the craft room, so that my rug making and electrical work, and come to think of it, skyline painting, gardening, and a host of other activities, can all be done in a separate location instead of in our main living area. For now, my studio is immediately upon entry to our home, and her bedroom should be a beacon of Queens.

Glimpse into my
in-process home and 
future starburst area

Ah, she took it down! She CAN be motivated to do things in her room! I never tightened the ceiling hook in her ceiling because I was meeting resistance; not the type of spectacle I want to try on my own - and I tried DIY electrical! Sputnik starburst will live over our refrigerator. Now I regret the cloth cord, because kitchen surfaces should be non-porous. Oh, well, this can be swapped out again for the transparent cord when this bright, cherry pink is coated in grease and mystery sauce. For now, we have more than enough task lighting and my electrical skills are back up-to-date. 

When I Go Back to the Calculations

Where did I go wrong? Here we have less than half of the Gold Fusion/Marigold complete and yet, no more yarn. I'm less than halfway done with the Sulfur/Chartreuse flowers and more than halfway finished with that yarn. It seems like the Yellow I'm only going to use one of the 2 skeins. So, what's the issue?

Starting on the repeat

I recalculated. My numbers are correct. Funny enough, it's the sketchier Hobbii brand that I computed correctly. This leads me to believe that the Cascade brand is not 220 yards as advertised. 

I am also having serious customer service issues with Yarnspirations.com and their poorly labeled hooks. They are either hiring only the mentally challenged or they are evil geniuses that determined that a service outlook founded on leading the consumer on a ridiculous goose chase is more cost effective than fixing the problem. So, I will make sure that I tell the vendor to cease selling their goods.

Yarn and conspiracy theories. The more logical explanation is that companies decided to dupe the consumer because they can. Well, no more from me.

Nice to imagine, but
I think this junks it up

In any case, I am thinking my rug looks more runner-like than I'd like. Stupid canvas manufacturer never learned the golden ratio. So, in order to full it out and use up the extra yarn, how about a width-increasing border of pompoms? Because, the only thing more impractical than a white rug would be the addition of vacuum clogging pompoms. So, on the one hand, the mock up looks festive, but on the other, does it clutter up the modern, clean lines of the Marimekko design, or did I take care of that already with my insane color scheme? I will probably make the pompoms and if they look funny on the rug, I'll turn them into a cool garland. 

In the end, I dropped another $80-something for the yarn I forgot to order in the first place. When I factor in the non-slip back, the only plus to hooking a rug yourself is complete control of the design. 

Oh, since my new, custom rug is too small for the floor (yet, simultaneously, too big for me to hook sanely), the solution has been located. Small individual flower rugs scattered around the main rug. 

Let's plan our next major
project while still in the
midst of current one!

And, finally, I decided against the pompoms and will go with length increasing fringe on the shorter edges. White is out because it will get sucked into the vacuum. I have 11 inches to go with the hooking, then fringing and hemming and binding and all that good stuff. The anticipation is off the charts here!

Marimekko Rug - Status and Lessons Learned

My wacky arm is rising up in protest

My math is off! I finished less than a quarter of the marigold flowers and I have, of course, used half the yarn. How? I want to blame poor quality control for my miscalculations! So, here's what I learned so far:

• It is tedious! I need traction and I'm not even 1/5 done. Past Linda didn't consider Future Linda and wanted to get the 5' wide canvas in the 8' length (bought by the yard). I'd need to apprentice the next few generations if I had done this. Carpal tunnel is looking likely.

• 

  Inch by inch
  

  I was worried about the white flowers, and I never thought about kelly green not really being a big floral color outside of leaves. The colors looked juicy until I added the black center in the kelly flower and that cut the Zebra Stripe gum vibe somewhat. And the marigold could more accurately be called mac 'n cheese...
• Fuzz: we all know that new rugs shed. I can confirm. AND, the yarn isn't in its final, cut state. Oh, well, that's why I have the German vacuum cleaner.
• Right to left and bottom to top is the way to latch hook if you're a righty like me. In other words, exactly the opposite of my instinct and most likely how I did my Lucy rug. But then, I ride snowboard goofy, so find what works for you.
• Soothing. Maybe because I did it during the good old days of my childhood, maybe it's my female ancestors echoing in the wool that they spun and crocheted to make spending money, but it feels comforting to do this. It calls to me to do one more row.
• Yarn quality is mixed. I bought a Cascade 220 white to test and mixed it in with the Hobbii white and I cannot tell the difference. The thickness does seem to vary more with the Hobbii brand, but it holds its ply better than the Cascade, so I think it is better for latch hooking, IMO. When all the threads are shmushed together vertically, you cannot see that some strands are fraying, again, IMHO.

I will let you know how ordering more yarn from other color lots goes. Let me finish the two cheesy flowers I started and I will address this problem later. Maybe Jesus will perform a miracle and fish occurrence and it will all go to plan, tee hee hee!

Will I persevere and finish or will this languish in a closet while my arm recuperates? Stay tuned!

Transferring Large Designs Without a Projector

Almost convenient, the auto-
resizing by my video
editing software!

If you're looking for an answer, keep moving, because I haven't figured this out. First, I tried casting my screen to my television, but I cannot use my Chromecast because it's a long story. At first, as a work-around, I thought I'd load my image to YouTube and then find it on YouTubeTV. Except that putting an image into a movie means the screen puts the entire image into the frame, and I want the whole frame taken up. When I do that, it's too big and now I need to do math to figure out what percent my canvas makes up of the whole screen and reduce the size by that percent. Not tempting.

Vintage wool precut yarn in yellow 
on a 5 gauge canvas. The knots
are on top of each other and it is
nearly impossible to pull this
thickness of yarn through

Backup number two would be to transfer the design to paper using the computer, and then use the paper to copy it to the canvas. This would save my television screen from being covered in Sharpie. I do have a cable to directly connect an image to the tv screen. Should I try that? And, as a last, last resort, I guess the old grid-to-grid square copying will need to happen. I used to use this technique when teaching scale factor as an extra credit project. I made the assignment such that the students could choose the image that was used. I have never seen so many scale drawings of Mario from Donkey Kong. In any case...

After testing my yarn and lengths, I can report the following: 

• The precut yarn is too thick - if I use the bigger $8 hook, it rips the canvas, and forget about the little hooks: this yarn is just too thick.
• The Hobbii yarn is perfect for the smaller hook size and the canvas, but this leaves some canvas showing. Also, this yarn is holding its ply the best, but that may be because it came through the canvas most easily.
• The Cascade 220 yarn is not as easy as the Hobbii, but is a nice balance of slightly fuller yarn that is only slightly more difficult to pull through and coverage. 

So, in the end, I am glad I went with uncut yarn and the smaller hook for the 5 gauge canvas. It seems like precut yarn is designed for the more common 3.5 gauge, and the Susan Bates latch hook commonly found in craft stores does not work on the smaller 5 holes. It tears the 5 gauge canvas apart, her hooks do, so watch out! Not sufficient information on their packaging! Now I'm stuck with an $8 hook I can't use, and free precut yarn to go with it; a mix of yellows and materials. 

The white in this picture is the two different brands of continuous yarn that I bought, on the left in the back is the Cascade 220, and in the front, the less plush Hobbii yarn. As you can see from the picture, the Hobbii yarn is holding up the best, but compared to the Cascade product, and the two yarns being of comparable price, I'd go with Cascade completely if the colors I wanted were a better match. So, now I get to hope that the difference between the two brands I will be using for my rug are not a hodge podge of uneven thicknesses. As if I needed any more incentive to trip!

And, as for the transfer, I ended up scaling the image and copying it to chart paper. I also decided to switch the canvas from Dimensions, which was breaking, to Color Crazy's better quality item, because I don't want to hook 54,000 bits and then find out that the base is crumbling. So my price will go up, but long term, this is worth the extra $30. Until it gets here, I get to wrap and cut, wrap and cut. Good times!

My Custom, 3'x5' Wool Rug for Under $150 (excluding slave labor, my own)

Well, sometimes doubt and procrastination equals savings. In my deliberations, I found the perfect palette (I am hoping) AND it's cheaper than my two prior options. But, I do have to increase my yarn length 12.5%, to at least 2.25". That makes it 121,500" in total, minimum. So, now we have: 

•  White: 37% = 44,955" or 1248.75 yards = 6 skeins of 220 or 12 of 110
• Kelly: 18% = 21,870" or 607.5 yards = 3 skeins of 220 or 6 of 110
• Chartreuse: 13% = 15,795" or 438.75 yards = 2 skeins of 220
• Marigold: 14% = 17,010" or 472.5 yards = 2 skeins of 220
• Yellow: 14% = 17,010" or 472.5 yards = 2 skeins of 220
• Black: 2% = 2,430" or 67.5 yards = 1 skein of 110

But! I found more than half of the yarn for $2.50 per 110 yards at Hobbii.com. So, I under estimated the white in my excitement and bought only 10 skeins and so I'm under for the white by 148.75 yards. Another $5. The rest are Cascade 220 and Cascade 220 Superwash. All 3 types of yarn that I am using have the same weight and ply. Imagine. Here's the breakdown for yarn:

220 Superwash in Sulfur (formerly known as chartreuse): 2 * 11.50 = $23

220 Superwash in Gold Fusion (formerly marigold): 2 * 11.50 = $23

220 in Daisy Yellow (formerly yellow): 2 * 11 = $22

Free shipping, total: $68. Now for the other 43%:

Friends wool in kelly: 6 * 2.50 = $16

Friends wool in black: 1 * 2.50 = $2.50

Friends wool in white :10 * 2.50 = $25, but, should have been 12 for $30, oops!

That makes $42.50 in Friends wool, plus $4.99 shipping and $4.21 tax, or $51.40 for 1923.7 yards of wool. Hmmmm...What's the catch? I'll tell you when it arrives.

I want to change the image to reflect my more orangey palette. I hope it looks nice, because now I am worried I've gone too John Boehner (Donald Trump for those of you who follow politics "lightly"). What do you think? Can you spot the differences?

There is no way that I even changed it. I am impressed with myself! The best news is that the white that I didn't buy enough of is a true white, or it looks more so than most wools I've seen. So, this is looking fortuitous as a beginning. Planning definitely helps rather than just jumping in. And testing, because I used my 2" yarn bits and they were too fiddly, so I increased it and all it affected was the white.

In any case, optimistic me wants to believe that for the low, low price of $119.00 plus the cost of the hook, $8, I will have myself a custom wool rug? The reason I am not factoring in the canvas is because it was a bit irregular and I am trying to get my money back. Not too shabby for a 3'x5' rug in wool!

I did also make some more egregious errors than just not ordering enough white. This was before I started officially planning and just jumped into things. I was ordering pre-cut yarn and it was going to cost me a small fortune for the wool. Most pre-cut wool has two major drawbacks, besides the exorbitant cost of the wool: 1) it is sourced exclusively overseas retail so factor in exchange rates and foreign shipping and 2) it comes in limited colors. So, even if budget was no issue, pre-cut wool is not going to make floor art! Luckily, the buyers that I started buying from, in grossly underestimated amounts, did not bother to check if the packages all came from the same dye lot and they did not and I got my money back on all of it. The only other mistake so far was buying a hook that is too large, and that set me back $8. I eyeballed it and thought I estimated correctly, but the flange was back and when it's folded up, it makes the hook too big to fit through the holes without tearing the canvas. The reason I had to eyeball it is because there were no dimensions on the package. So, now I want my $8 back! Haha! I will get it, too! I will not accept shoddy quality!

Now I'm noticing two things about my longer strand computations. First, I am not only short the white, but 220 x 2 < 472.5 yards, so now I need to two white for $5, plus the $4.99 shipping and $0.45 tax, and one more each of expensive Daisy Yellow and Gold Fusion. Two inches is going to have to work with my new hook that I should be getting for free, because we just added $22.50 more onto the total. $22.50 worth of 220 wool + $10.35 in Friends + $119 already spent = $151.85. My pride wants this rug under $150. I will make it work!

Color Mock-Ups for Marimekko Unikko Rug

Decisions, decisions. So, now that I sourced my colors, let me rethink the design. So, this is my inspiration art, by Bjorn Wiinblad, and that inspired my bedroom color palette. Now I'm using this as my design, but it's looking a little stark. Here they are together.

Now let me show you some others that I don't like. First off, there is the matching background color, but I feel like this adds clouds to very bright flowers. Nothing is bright when it's cloudy, so this is a fail.

This is worse! What are they in front of, Donald Trump? Jeff Boehner? I think these mockups are getting worse. The color proportions just look off compared to the artwork. As for the pink, it is pretty and could be a pink, cotton candy sunset, but again, no. I think the eye needs the white space to take a break. Also, do I need to complicate the settled palette and throw off all my hard work spent yarn sourcing? No.

Now, what I could do is switch out one of the colors for the white, I'm thinking the chartreuse, and that could be the background color? Where do you find chartreuse flowers in nature? However, my wedding flowers were exclusively Stop n Shop chartreuse mums. My colors were chartreuse and all the greens and bronze. My one bridesmaid was given free choice but told green or bronze. She doesn't look good in green and so my bridesmaid wore...brown. Close enough! How many people remember that my bridesmaid was not in the metallic family? My main complaint about her was that she hadn't popped and wasn't as pregnant as the bride (why didn't she invent a time machine?) Okay, off topic.

Before I even write this paragraph about white flowers, do I even want to consider dirty white flowers? No, no I do not. But, let's try it. Okay, I do like this. It is kind of unexpected. And now the jonquil or true yellow looks chartreuse, but it is jonquil! So, two final decisions before I commit to the yarn: white background or white flowers? Now even what I term marigold is looking pretty orange, and there is a minor focus on white or near white (pale pink), echoing the tones of the picture more? It was the chartreuse that set this whole project off, so now I'm wondering, do I lose it altogether and go with the blue-grey background and these 3 distinct flower colors rather than the color family with the white background? 

Okay, that's a no. So we have 2 versions to decide between. The original, unmessed with vision, or the chartreuse background with white instead of chartreuse flowers. 

Finding Yarn for Marimekko Rug

This is going to be harder than I thought. I found two almost suitable yarns for my project, but the main photo is missing the chartreuse plus it isn't appropriate for rugs, and the second from the top is just peach rather than yellow-orange. So, this is going to be a lot harder than I thought. The greens are too far off on the right middle, from Peace Fleece. But the top-most yarns, from Harrisville Designs, is off for the marigold, but overall I could see the rug in this color combo. It is sold in 200 yard skeins for $17 a skein, and remembering my chart from the Pre-Contemplation post, we have:

As much as I'd love to patronize an actual store,
this is proving futile.

• White: 37% = 39,960" or 1,110 yards = 6 skeins
• Kelly: 18% = 19,440" or 540 yards = 3 skeins
• Chartreuse: 13% = 14,040" or 390 yards = 2 skeins
• Yellow: 14% = 15,120" or 420 yards = 2 skeins
• Jonquil: 14% = 15,120" or 420 yards = 2 skeins
• Black: 2% = 2,160" or 60 yards = 1 skein

That makes a grand total of 16 skeins x $17 = $272 in yarn. The good news is this is pure wool. The bad news is they are heathered. I asked for samples, but in the meantime, the search continues. Finally, maybe the best candidate, is on bottom right, which is from here.

For continuity's sake, I'd prefer to buy all of my yarns from one maker, but that's looking impossible. For the best colors, but no idea if the weights and plies will match or if it will look sparser in areas of different yarn brands, I would ideally chose the following colors: 

• Chartreuse: one cone $29 + shipping
• Kelly: two cones at €25 + shipping
• Yellow: one cone $29 + shipping
• Marigold: one cone $26.50 + shipping
• White & black: doesn't matter, but I'd like true white and not sheep colored wool. Whatever is cheapest
  

How much of a rip-
off of this, how much
of Marimekko?

Comparing my rug mock-up to the art from the room, I'm back to preferring the blue-grey background instead of white. First, white rugs are impractical - but not nearly as impractical as black! I tried that in Tootie Pie's room and I swear I'm going to get a hernia trying to get the tiniest of lint molecules from that thick pile. Second, it will knock you over the head with how tied together my room is! Or should I do pink like the Wiinblad and subtly bring in that neutral? Still decisions and mockups to be made.

So, no one does samples, because shipping 4 inches of yarn would be exorbitant, but they do offer a sample card (for a fee, of course). So, there we have a reason to keep brick and mortar stores: color. Also, definitely quality. We've all seen those "What I expected versus what I got" stories. Some of us may have even experienced it. Oooh! Harrisville has 2-ply wool in 450 yard cones and 200 yard skeins. Here's what I need:

• White: 37% = 39,960" or 1,110 yards = 3 cones 
• Kelly: 18% = 19,440" or 540 yards = 1 cones, 1 skein
• Chartreuse: 13% = 14,040" or 390 yards = 1 cone
• Marigold: 14% = 15,120" or 420 yards = 1 cone
• Yellow: 14% = 15,120" or 420 yards = 1 cone
• Black: 2% = 2,160" or 60 yards = 1 skein

$26.50 * 7 = $185.50 plus $34 and free shipping, equals $219.50! Somehow the website computes it wrong: $217.50. Okay! Math does come in handy! Here are my colors to the right:

For comparison, this project will require me to make 54,000 loops. My Lucy project was 20"x27" and I assume it was 3.5 squares per inch, took just 6,125 loops, and that was pre-cut acrylic yarn. I will be having to cut mine, and wool will absorb oils from skin, so dryness should get worse. As it is, you can simply peel my skin off in thick sheets, despite regular cuticle trims and pumicing. What can I say, my skin really does its thing.

This is the end of my excitement. Now, the tedium begins. Also, figuring out how to transfer the design to the canvas. My projector days are over, sadly. Hmmm...maybe that's the teaching career calling me back for one...last...go. Surely I know a place with a screen larger than 3x5... My already too big for my space telly is 3'x2' approximately. Do it in bits? Remains to be solved. Keeping busy! Now, let's really get some carpal tunnel!