Challenge Mat Update

For those of your who already have a subscription to Rug Beat you may have already seen the update in the challenge. For those of you who don't, here's the latest on my rug:

A little mix up, due to me thinking I had another couple of weeks (when in fact I was a week late) meant that I scrambled a bit at the end to get something for Candi Derr to include in her update on Rug Beat.

Here is what I sent:

Here is what I said in the update:

As you can see, I have boxed each of the words (or two) and used a different font and treatment for each one. I had originally planned on doing them as word tiles that I could arrange around my studio in any shape I wanted (kind of like giant fridge magnets), but I decided that was just too much finishing, so I grouped them all together.

The fonts that I used mostly came from a website called dafont.com, where you can download fonts for personal use for free or make a donation to the creator. If I were to make this into a pattern, I would pay for each of the fonts used, so as not to infringe on copyright. I love, love, love the "cat font" which is the second HOOK at the bottom right.

I have used all kinds of textures - sari silk, wool slub yarn, roving, sparkly jersey, lots of recycled kilt plaids and 'as is' wools. I did the word "WILL" in proddy after having pretty much decided to do a proddy border - only the top edge us done thus far.

I think this will become the "motto" for the studio. It will hang in a place where everyone can see it.

What did I LOVE about this project? Everything!!

I loved that there were at least 25 patterns in my notebook before I settled on this one.

I loved finding all the fun fonts.

I loved figuring out the relationship between all the words and fonts.

I loved hooking each of the blocks. Once I decided on separating them with the black and white tweed, it sort of gave each tile its own personality and I felt free to "go for it" on all of them. (I may change the second tile "what you", but am going to wait till I am all done the border before making that decision.)

I loved the exercise of trying to create a bit of a colour plan. Using a print of the original design, I played with coloured pencils till I was sure that each of the colours appeared more than once and then went from there. Each tile is like its own little mat and I tried to do one each morning, but not in any order. Sometimes I would just get the actual words done and then save the backgrounds for later.

I love doing the proddy border. It is so much fun and is the best way to bring all the colours from inside the mat to the edge.

Here are a few close ups of the different "word blocks".

Sari Silk lettering, recycled kilts

Roving, yarn and recycled wool

Slub sky and wool letters

Random plus signs - all wool

Sari Silk lettering

Proddy lettering

Feels like the 60's doesn't it?

Glitter lettering, yarn and recycled skirt wool

Cat font- what else can I say.

It really was a fun, fun project. I learned something from every single block. So it was definitely a Challenge - even for the Challenger.