Photo heavy post

 Plaid look with two colors

 Patriotic rugs with fringe

 Patriotic balance with blue on both sides, hemmed

 Patriotic balanced with blue on both sides, fringed

 Easter-ish colored table runner

 Pretty pale yellow tablerunner

Rust colored calico tablerunner

Very scattered here.

Too many things that need to be handled.

End of year/final business year for the parents --paperwork!

Part time job at the auto store.

Summer chores.

Still trying to qualify for just A LITTLE BIT of unemployment... I should qualify, but the $# they say I am worth is so small I have 'excessive' earnings by working my in town job.  Seems they haven't included my rug business income into the mix and it's impossible to get them to reevaluate.

Still working on clearing out the parents copious amounts of 'stuff' in the house.

Still trying to weave and produce in the hopes that there are vendor events to attend this fall...

(My biggest event in the fall has already been cancelled)

I'm trying to stay positive, but it's a challenge some days.

One thing to look forward to....

Three of my mares went to the breeding pasture.

Maybe, just maybe we will have 3 babies next spring :)

All for now,

JULIE

Labels

I've considered for years about whether I should permanently "label" my rugs.

So far I haven't, for many reasons.


What kind of label?
Cost and where to source?
Do I want to brand my rugs and present the 'name' rather than the product?

I'm not a 'brand buyer' in real life.

I really don't care what the name is on a product if I like it, it works, and the value is there.

I also think that mislabeling can happen.  The label doesn't fit the product, either from the design points, or from the perception from the receiver end.

So the other day, I made a comment on a facebook post.  I don't normally do that - more of a comment stalker/reader here :)

It was one of those supposed to be cute posts that involved animals - this one was a 'cute' puppy antagonizing a deer fawn.  

Many of the comments were on the line of 'oh how cute', 'I wish people could get along as well as animals', 'made my day' sort of thing.

From my experience - and education- of 'reading' animal behavior,  this was no love fest happening.

It was also illegal if a game warden wanted to follow the letter of the law.

My short post pointing out the distress signals in the video to try and educate - 'liked' by many in a short time by the way - was promptly deleted by the original poster, as well as all others comments of the same persuasion.

And then the LABEL  part of my story ....

The original poster then edited her post to say she had deleted and blocked all the 'ANIMAL RIGHTS ACTIVISTS'  that were making negative comments!


I'm sorry, but I am SO NOT  an animal rights activist - LOL

I help raise animals for food.  I hunt. I have pets.  I even believe outlawing horse slaughter in the US was a bad thing to do, and I love and own horses!

What I can get behind is treating animals of all persuasion with dignity and care for the duration of their lives. And I don't do personification.

And at the risk of offending someone in this offense taking world we live in now....   I don't label my friends black, white, red, or purple.  They are my FRIENDS!  I don't see them as a color...

So the point about labels I'm making is:

How someone perceives me is ON THEM.   If you don't care to engage and be open to information outside of your own knowledge and experience, it doesn't really matter what you think of me. 

That poster is always saying she wishes everyone would be open to each other and respect each other for their own views.   Well, it appears to me she should look in the mirror and remind herself of that very same thing.

All for now,
JULIE

Not my style

I don't like fiddly things.

Busy work.

Focused repetitive work.

In other words I like to get in the groove and not have to think too hard!  :)   LOL

That's why I like making rag rugs. 

I don't HAVE TO measure to get a perfect size.

I don't HAVE to work with a pattern.

I don't HAVE to be perfect.

This whole rug goes against my grain.

I had to stop and start the two colors of weft....

I had to weave with a shot of warp in between each row to manipulate the warp color ....

And. It. Was. Hard.

:)

Several times I caught a mistake (missed doing the shot of warp between the weft)

Had to 'unweave'

That takes time.   It literally took me a week to weave this one rug!

I was SO NOT INTO IT...

I kept walking away.

It's finally done.  

I can move on to something I find more enjoyable.

It seems that alot of my daily chores these days are the NOT FUN variety!

All for now,
JULIE