Gene Shepherd's Internet Rug Camp

I’m using this blog post to communicate changes I am making in the update and redesign of the patterns section in my Internet Rug Camp store.   Now that the holidays are over and I am settled in our new condo, I am turning my attention to reorganizing and updating al my patterns. This will allow me to show new patterns that are available even though they are not yet represented in my store.  It’s a work in progress as I make changes to this list every day.  Therefore, if you see something you like, just drop me an email and I will supply your needs.

The Winter Table Runner comes in two sizes:  12 by 54 ($95) and 12 by 39 ($85)

The Pomegrande Table runner comes in two sizes:  12 by 38 ($85) and 13 by 49 ($95)

Going To Grapevine comes in two sizes:  8.5” by 11”  ( $35  )  and  11”  by 16” ( $45)

Ewelalia: 14” by 14”  ($40)

Australian Keet:  13 by 22” ($50)

Mrs. Lincoln – My recreation of the rug in the formal parlor of the Lincoln home:  22 by 65.5  ($140)

Although I do not have finished photos yet, here is a look at a great little hit and miss pattern

Hit & Miss Tiz Table Runner.  While it will normally be available in two and three block lengths, in sizes and prices similar to the previous table runners shown, longer versions preferred for people like Tiz are also available by special order.

Planning the very last post for the Internet Rug Camp has been a somewhat daunting task.  I’ve considered a variety of things but none seemed quite right. Eventually, it came down to the essence or root of what the Internet Rug Camp has always been about:  Me, using my time and interests to explore the fiber art’s world.  When I started blogging, I just wanted to see how long I could sustain a conversation with friends, clients and colleagues on the topic of fiber art.  I’ve been doing that for well over 20 years now and feel like I could go on for some time doing that. However, at my age, I hate for me (and my heirs when the time comes) to be responsible for a 12-month subscription should I no longer be able to fulfill it.  Hence, the year long exit plan we have been going through.

As for that final blog post, after much thought, I decided to just stick with the basics of what I am dong on this day to promote fiber arts.

I spent the last day of 2024 forming batches of pot holder (Pro size)  loops suitable to making one pot holder.  It’s prep work for a local class I will start teaching at my ATHA Chapter meetings in 2025.    While every one who is taking this class is buying a frame and enough wool loops to make 2 pot holders, I bought enough cotton loops to have plenty for myself with enough left over to share.  While the bags said there were enough loops in each bag to make 18 potholders … I did not find that to be the case.  No two bags are alike and none tallied up to 18.  The only way to do that was to know for sure was to divide them into the magic number and then do the math to find out how much it actually costs to make one cotton pot holder.   Oddly enough, I don’t think I will need enough cotton loops to make 37, I’ll keep the ones I want and sell the rest to students as cotton is much cheaper than the wool ones.

Therefore, on the last day of 2024, which is also the last day of the Internet Rug Camp, you have found me at my post doing research on fiber art’s projects as a means of making it possible for more people to join our ranks.

For the time being, my site will stay alive.  You can access the posts and the videos for a while.  I’ll probably even put up some new content on the site – especially in the patterns section.

But, the main thing I want to leave with you – the most important thing – numero uno thingo is

It has been my pleasure to serve you these years.  You are much more than friends, clients and students to me.   Most of my deepest relationships are found in the IRgC ranks.  I appreciate so much your support.

It has been a great honor to spend each day with you.

Much love to your all and best wishes for the New Year and a long, happy live.

GRS

Two good things came out of our clogged kitchen sink on Monday.  It provided a good excuse to bail out of the condo by going on a little fiber related shopping trip with my daughter.

She needed to pick out some fabric for a creative sewing class she will be teaching in a few weeks.  While she really didn’t need my help in picking anything out, she did ask for my opinion and chose most every thing I suggested.

The other good by product of having a clogged sink was that she had us over for dinner.

It’s not a very long walk, literally around the corner from our building.  Ann lives in the building on the left and Ruth, who cooked our meal, lives on the right.  We’ll also be at her house for New Years Day.  And, as for the sink, two plumbers came on Monday.  They were not successful and it’s now been handed off to our Insurance Company.  I suspect nothing will happen now before next week.  Luckily, we know the way to our Daughter’s places by heart!

I did run into one forgotten thing at Ruths.

One of my very early free patterns in RHM.

While it is very regular for me to be starting a new week posting a new blog on a Sunday evening, it’s also very odd for that Sunday to start the last week of the Internet Rug Camp.  Even so, it’s very good that this post is one of my favorite kinds of posts – A Good Report from one of our regular readers.  In this case it comes from Sue-Anne from Prince Edward Island, who has sent in many reports like this over the years!

Dear Gene:  I just finished this La Paz themed rug yesterday for our newest grandson born November 17, 2024. His parents are often off on adventures and now he will be too! We haven’t met him in person yet and he’s almost 6 weeks old.

Hopefully we can visit them in Mexico this winter! 

I’ve really enjoyed seeing you and Marsha transition from your house to your condo. Thank you for taking us along for the ride. Sorry to hear about the incident with the red food coloring!! 

Happy New Year to you and your family!

The plan was to get through Christmas and then hit the garage hard on the 26th.

And, I still think it was a really good plan.  However, I was pretty tired after Christmas and Ruth and Jane were coming over for lunch to help us eat up our Christmas Day leftovers.

And we went to their house on the evening of the 26th to eat up their Christmas Eve leftovers.  As it turned out, relaxing and thinking about work to begin on the 27th was the perfect thing to do on the 26th.

PS:  I like running into my art work whether in my home or those of my daughters.

Here is a quick fiber report on Christmas Day:

Even though we moved to a new place, we pulled off our traditional Christmas noon meal of grilled filets (off the community grills), roasted vegetables, mashed potatoes, Yorkshire pudding, gravy, Beige Velvet Cake and Plum pudding.

As for gifts of interest to this audience

All my women folk got a hand woven oversized potholder made from hand dyed wool.  I ended up letting them pick the one they wanted from my stack of made pot holders … and one still on the frame.

My daughter Ann received that hand woven wool scarf I reported on while making it last week.  I was happy with how it turned out and so was she.

After a couple of days of celebration, I will be down in the garage working the rest of the week trying to bring order to the last bastion of chaos from our move.

For the celebrations of this week – I hope you had either a wonderful Christmas or a Happy Hanukah.

Happily, by mid-afternoon on Christmas Eve, we had done all we could do and started settling down to some serious holiday activities.

Although a 3 PM Christmas Eve service doesn’t seem too heavy on the “eve” end of things, thats the service we went to.  It was very nice and, by the time it was over and we had got back to our homes, we only had about an hour to finish up preparations for our Christmas Eve meal.

Now that we have moved, this meal has been permanently moved to my daughter Ruth’s condo.  And she has delegated the decorations for that event to her daughter Jane.

One of the by-products of my 10 trips to Russia is that we’ve ended up with a lot of lovely Lomonosov China.  (Why bring home junk?)  And, as I often  left the US for those trips on December 26, that meant that many of my visits extended to Russian (Orthodox) Christmas, which is about 2 weeks later than ours.  So, my many Russian memories are intertwined with Christmas here, there and this china.  Therefore, we bring out the good stuff on our Christmas Eve.

Not that we had too much to eat.

Ruth keeps things very simple.

Whether your holiday celebrations are simple or elaborate, I hope this note finds you enjoying all your family, friends and blessings.

And, since Hanukkah starts on December 25 this year, I hope all friends celebrating that great historic event are flooded with the light and love of friends and family.

Best wishes to you all.

My time was hijacked with a color problem Monday evening, which hijacked my mental resources, causing me to forget to post.  To that end, I am making today’s post a little late.

Red has long been one of my favorite colors in the dye lab. It’s also been a popular wool color.  For example, there are places I regularly travel where I just know that I need, or now, needed, to bring along more red in solids, textures and yarn, than any other color.  My favorite Christmas red was 2 parts 351, 1 part 808 and 1/16 of some bright green – like Shamrock or whatever similar green was handy.  Yes, deeper reds come from adding green.  This recipe turns almost any thing red, including colored textures.   For one yard of bright wool, this translates to 2 tsps of 351 and 1 tsp of 808 and a heaping 16th of green.  It makes a good red and, if you want it a little more wine colored and softer, you could even throw in some Mahogany.

Oddly enough, I am reminded of this dye recipe when we make the red velvet cake for Christmas.  As Red Velvet is really a chocolate cake over powered by dye, it’s obvious that one has to use a lot of red.  Of course, we are willing to do this as that cake is part of my childhood tradition, since our cleaning lady during my growing up years always gave us this cake for Christmas and my mother always served it for Breakfast on Christmas morning.  Marsha has cabbaged on to this, although we usually save it for Christmas lunch as an alternative to plum pudding to those who would prefer it … or both.

We are dropping this tradition this Christmas.

The cake was in the process of being made last night when the cup of red dye got spilled onto the new white kitchen floor.  I did not take a photo.  However, as a student of history and someone getting ready to visit the UK in a few months, I would describe it as what monastery floors must have looked like in the dark ages when marauding Vikings gutted three or four monks during a raid.  Even for a person who loves red (and a descendant of Vikings according to 23 and me)  and one who was not adverse to spilling a little dye in my studio, the site of Viking carnage in my kitchen is a visual picture that has been seared onto my brain that I will take to my grave.  Even cleaning it did nothing to lessen this horror!

Long story short – I fortuitously bought a steam cleaner about 3 weeks ago.  That coupled with several hours of work, dozens of rags and several containers full of Bissell collected of brilliant yet  dirty floor water, we have hope for the future.  Although, I predict that a little Viking mayhem will continue to show up from time to time from the cracks and crevices of the otherwise kitchen floor.

This morning, we are all ready to start our Christmas Eve celebrations with a new tradition:  Beige Velvet cake, no doubt a reminder of the lovely color of the manger in Bethlehem.

PS:  If you are going to try my dye recipe, do it outside.

Last night, my wife and I decided to take a walk to look at a Christmas House.

It was just two blocks away from our house.  To get there, we walked a half a block to our new favorite Mexican Restaurant, literally on the other side of our condo complex.  From there we had enough stamina to make it the other 1.5 blocks to the house shown above.

Coming home, we decided to walk through the Packing House complex, which is just across the street from our condo.

The Packing House section of town contains the historic 115 year old Packing House

Where citrus used to be sold to commercial buyers, after which they packed it up and shipped it off on the railroad. And yes, the railroad track still runs right down the street where our front door is.  It’s situated in such a way that even when a train is slowly going down this track, cars can drive on either side.  I think there are only about 2 trains a day, both in the morning and I quite like hearing the train whistle from my condo.

Besides this big ware house like complex which holds 26 restaurants, there are another dozen or so in a two block cluster around it.

That means we walked by another historic building – the old Packard Dealership – which is now a fancy Mexican Steak house, as well as other very attractive restaurants.  .

Of course, you can also duck into the Packing House greater complex and find all sorts of other attractive new builds, which is what we did.

While it is always a busy space, it was really busy Saturday night as there was an outdoor  Christmas market going on.

There were makers of  jewelry, ornaments, pottery, art pieces and all sorts of hand made things.

It’s a beautiful place to walk, shop, talk to people, sit and relax and just chill out.

I bought just one loaf of hand made artisanal bread from a local baker from Cypress, CA.  Check her out @ wildwheatbread.  I bought a sour dough calamata olive bread for Christmas Eve appetizers.

Our walk through the market took us to the main side entrance of the Packing House, at which point

We made a hard right and walked out to Anaheim Blvd.  The front of our complex (we live on the back side) is shown just past those palm trees.

As I said, it’s literally just across the street.

More and more I like where we live.

We had a business lunch on Thursday – our first non-family event in the new place.

Although it was a tough crowd, everything came off just fine.  Everyone found the condo and a place to park on the street.  They even were able to navigate the security code to get into our building.  Marsha discovered that she can still cook lunch for a group.  I was glad to use the Spode, which had been packed up for over 5 years.  It’s the only fine china we brought to the new place and it still works perfectly well in spite of the sabbatical.

Happily, we got a lot of business done, although we may have to meet again sometime to review our plans … over another lunch and conversation.

It’s good to know that the new place works very well for both business and pleasure.