ISSN 2207-001X 16 April,2017
Creativity! there must be something in the water in Queensland; two Sunshine Coast Rug Crafters share their latest projects.
“Craig; The Poker Master” created by Judi Tompkins –
Judi’s story –
This piece was by way of a “thank you” to a publican (he owns a number of pubs in NSW) who has been extremely generous in his support of one of my friends. She owns a barber shop and needed to move locations, Craig made her a great deal on a new shop, paid for the renovations and added a toilet for her all for free. I really appreciate his doing all this for one of my very good friends so I thought I would make something as a “thank you“.
The piece is reminiscent of the “Godfather” motif but I couldn’t (and didn’t try to duplicate it). Craig is apparently quite a good “Hold ’em” Texas poker player (Craig is in a wheelchair so card games are something he can do in addition to running his pubs) so I thought I would make him the “godfather” of poker (without using the “godfather” term of course!)
So … what you see is a hand manipulating the various card suits (they are “swinging” so the puppet strings deliberately don’t hang straight). I got a man’s ID bracelet, had it engraved with his name and added it to the wrist of the “puppet master” manipulating the cards.
The piece is about the size of a dinner plate (I haven’t measured it yet) and was deliberately made in black and gold so that the embellishments would stand out. I used wool yarns along with Cashmere roving.
Annette White shares her latest project which also has a story;
Annette says :
My latest little rugging project is finished, well in use, and I’m happy with it. It’s on Greg’s chair (a rescue object from the kerbside [the chair, not Greg]) he likes to sit on when working at the computer. The rug on the floor we bought about 12 years ago from a sheltered workshop in Namibia. It was a beautiful experience to meet the person who designed and wove it as well as the other people working there. They dyed their local Karakul wool there as well and had a whole pile of skeins there. When I looked closer I noticed a pair of little bright eyes in a black face shining out of that pile of wool, it was one of the workers’ baby having a nap in there.
When we had chosen our rug, all the people started to chant in happiness. – Seeing the rug on the floor always reminds me of that beautiful experience.
The only bit of wool I had to dye to match the colour is the pinkish one. For the reverse side I found a bit of perfect matching furnishing material in an op shop.”
Both Judi and Annette belong to the Sunshine Coast Rug Crafters. The group meets at the Beerwah Library, Beerwah, from 2:30pm to 5:30pm on the 2nd 
Friday and 3rd Tuesday of the month.
Newcomers are always welcome
Jo Franco, Editor