I went to visit my friend designer Barb Sackel a few months ago at her quaint home on a little lake where we always sit and talk about our latest projects. I bring along something new to work on and she is always working on something new as well. This time she was doing punch needle embroidery and rug hooking.
I was immediately enthralled especially with the beautiful hand-dyed wool yarns she was using that she had dyed herself. It wasn’t the dyeing process that was piquing my interest but rather the variegated colors and how they worked up in the punched work. The yarns are so gorgeous, I just couldn’t stop staring at them. I’m sure you’ve all seen fabric or a design like that, right?
I was suddenly reminded of doing punch needle embroidery as a teenager and remembered how much I loved it. Then Barb told me that you can use a larger punch for making rugs – ooh ooh! You know how we all get when we get inspired.
Exclusive Yarn Distributor!
Barb and I both love to design patterns so I bet you can guess that after a weekend of Oohs and Aahs and Oh Oh! and brainstorming we came up with many ideas for patterns of our own AND I left with boxes of hand-dyed yarns and was instantly appointed as her exclusive yarn distributor! Barb and I always inspire each other so much it is almost dangerous!
Barb’s Hand-Dyed Yarns
~Hand Spun -Fleece Hand Spun Yarn. 12 colors to choose from. Each skein contains 10 yards of yarn. Hand Spun yarn is considered Art Yarn when spun with fleece.
~Chunky -Corriedale Wool Yarn. 29 color options. 10 yards (weight .5 oz). Works beautifully for rug hooking/Punching.
~Fingering -Merino Wool Yarn. Over 45 different colors to choose from. Each skein is 87 yards .5oz. Equal to 6 strands of embroidery floss. Perfect for punch needle embroidery.
As soon as I got home, I ordered supplies for punch needle and rug punching which are now available on QuiltWoman.com as well.
Then my husband and I built a throw rug punching/hooking frame from simple instructions on Youtube and I got to work on my new summer projects which, by the way, are very portable for taking to our camp.
Designing New Patterns
And of course Barb and I are busy designing new patterns for both punch needle embroidery which is done with a small punch and fingering yarn or embroidery floss and rug hooking/punching patterns which can be used for either method and use either a rug hook or larger rug punch that comes in 2 sizes.
In future blog posts I’m going to show you lots of different patterns that can be used for many different types of quilting and needlework. I hope you get as inspired as we did!
~Nancy
I’ve always wanted to learn how to do punch art. Thank you for this email. I look forward to upcoming emails from you on this subject