Older Mat. New Post.

For years now I have not only been using "free stuff" on my computer to help me hook from photographs, but I have also been teaching people about it. 

All my "hooking from photos" classes - live and virtual - use free online photo editors, but I also introduce my students to resources that are on the internet that they may not be aware of.

I have been invited to participate in Workshop Week 2024, which is an online extravaganza of teachers and courses. My course will be related to using your computer in rug hooking. And it will introduce those registered to the resources. 

I decided to do a blog post about my rug that I call "April Tech", which was a rug I created using my computer to do each and every step. A little background for the name and design. I had a "December" mat and thought it would be fun to create a mat for each month. As I was teaching this course in April, I chose April. (Those are still the only two month mats I have hooked. lol)

Step l: Clip Art (the perfect argument against "I can't draw".)

I thought that a kid carrying an umbrella in "April Showers" was a great place to start. I found the following clip art which was the foundation of the design. The main motif. There were lots of choices. Just google the image you are looking for with "Free Clip Art" and voila. 

I also wanted umbrellas for the corners. And I wanted some kind of cloud clip art.

Remember, these are all free!!! Royalty Free and Free to use. 

Step 2:  Fonts  (the perfect argument against "I can't print.")

I wanted a font that would be easy to hook, and that looked like April. I I went to dafont https://www.dafont.com/ and sampled a couple that I liked.

I blew them up to the size I needed and tried them on for size. 

I wanted to use a picture of my grandson, instead of the little girl under the umbrella, so I found a shot that I liked, cropped the image to get in closer, and put in his face.  

Step 3:  Enlarging

I used a free online resource called blockposters to blow up the image of Jackson's face inside the umbrella to the size I wanted. This resource works with your uploaded image in multiples of an 8.5 x 11" sheet of paper. So you can go two wide, three wide. It sends you a preview and gives you finished size dimensions. You can just tape the sheets together to make your final size. 

Then, on a piece of gridded paper, I put all the elements together. (This I did with scotch tape and scissors - I know it could be done on the computer, but old school seemed the best for me at this step.) 

With Jackson in position, the font selected, and the clip art umbrellas in the border, I was ready to go.

(Forgot to say that Jackson's photo was run through Photomania to create the value sketch I used for hooking him. )

A couple more decisions were made simpler with more online resources. I found an image online - not one to copy, but to do a colour selection from it for the rain on the inside - not the border. The colour plan was created by sampling the colours in the image using Paintbrush - a free program for Mac (it is called Paint for PC and does exactly the same thing.)

On to the hooking. There is no online resource for that lol. Just one loop at a time. Here is a progress shot - nearly done, but still a few things to change. You can see that already, I have used the same cloud swirl on all sides, instead of the raindrops I had originally thought of. 

Here is the final piece. 

I changed the single line around the main motif - opted for a rainbow of colour instead of the black and white beading. And I added a golden yellow outline to the lettering to make it pop. I hooked one line of the background wool around the black border, and then hooked a line of the golden yellow. 

It was a fun challenge to myself to prove that from start-to-finish, I could create an entire mat using the free resources that are readily available. I had used all of them together for many, many years. But not all in the same piece.