Rug of the Month: July 2016

Good morning, everyone. Now that July is winding down, Ania wanted to share the latest Rug of the Month. This time, she has decided to share her newest rug, created for and finished just in time for this month’s Northern McGown Teachers Workshop. The rug pattern is Bonde Pride, created by Jane McGown Flynn. The pattern’s dimensions are 16 in. x 20 in., and Ania used #3 wool strips to create the finished piece.

Take a look below to see the rug and Ania’s explanation of her process behind this rug.

Why did you create this rug?

I was asked to teach monochromatic’s at this year’s teacher workshop. I was assigned this pattern, but I loved it! This pattern was so delightful to hook.

From top to bottom, is the 11-value grey scale, 10-value turquoise tint, 10-value turquoise shade swatches

How did you approach elements like color planning for this project?

In a monochromatic you can only use one color, or hue. And therefore, I had to rely on tints, tones and shades of one color to make the rug three dimensional.

A tint is a color that has white added to it.

A shade is a color that has black added to it.

A tone is a color that has grey added to it.

Value is the most important player in any rug. Value is how dark or light something is, with black and white as the two extremes of that pole, and all the shades of grey that fall in between making up a value scale. It’s what makes or breaks a rug, not color. Working with a monochromatic makes it easier to focus on using value to bring drama to your rugs.

I decided on blue at random. Because value plays such an important role, the central lattice work is a grey scale, as well as the secondary lattice at the bottom of the design motif. That’s the first thing I hooked.

I had three different swatches that I dyed to work with. One was an 11-value grey scale swatch. To cover the tints of blue was one 10-value swatch that I dyed straight out of the jar. To cover the shades of blue was one 10-value swatch that was the same as the tint swatch but with the addition of black dye.

Here is a close up of some of the rug’s shading detail. Here you can see the tints and shades at play!

What are you most proud of in this rug?

I think I did a really good job of showing how dynamic a monochromatic color scheme can be. This rug has given me an opportunity to teach more monochromatic color schemes to rug hookers, and that’s something I’d like to do more of in the future. If any of the readers are interested in a class on monochromatics, let me know!

What was the most difficult aspect to complete?

There was the personal challenge of using only the three swatches and no more wool in creating the rug.

There’s also an optical illusion in the rug, which is a good take home lesson in using values, in how your eye tricks you into not seeing things that you think would be obvious when it comes to color. I wonder if any of the readers can see the optical illusion that I’m taking about in the rug. A little challenge for all of you!

 

Can you find the optical illusion?

Do you have any other comments about this rug?

The background of the rug is hooked in the middle grey value from the grey value swatch. The reason why is to make the motif pop. Most backgrounds are either light or dark backgrounds, and by using a medium background void of color, it allows you to fully appreciate how the tints in the motif are making the rug more dynamic and interesting.

Let Ania know of your thoughts in the comments below!