bumble bee rooster & other wip updates

A few months ago I got this little rug hook kit from Lori Brechlin's shop in Amherst.  I'm sorry to not give credit to the designer but typically enough, I can't find the bag it came in or my receipt.   Anyway, got it home and finally took it out of the stash pile a few weeks ago.  Rug hooking is pretty new to me and I've never hooked on wool before, which this is, and my rug hook needle turned out to be one for fine rug hooking.  Another obstacle that made me put it back in the box for a while was the fact that there was no photo to guide me with colors.  The kit included wool strips that were wrapped in a bundle-- one for background, one for rooster, but there wasn't a photo for the finished rooster so I am guessing, and now, tossing colors I didn't like and using cut strips from my wool stash.  A new primitive rug hook I got at VA Rugfest a few weeks ago has made me pick up the project again but I am still stymied with color decisions.  Agh!  This shouldn't be hard, right?

Since my previous hook didn't do anything but pull the wool background and shred the wool strips, I switched to the rug punch.  So the outline and rooster head are made with punching but the strips were too wide for the punch so with an outline to guide me, I turned it over and am now hooking.  I've looked at a bunch of rooster photos online and thought yellow would look good in the tail.  Maybe not, as my husband proclaimed it the "bumble bee rooster".  What do I know, I've never lived on a farm.

But I really like how the head turned out, except for one strip that popped out on top.  Whoops.  And I like the green tail but the bumble bee yellow/black has to go.

Possibilities for colors are above.  More mixes of green for the tail?  Orange in the tail?  Orange breast?  Hmmm...  orange feet, maybe.   Going with the flow is not my strong suit...  Stay tuned on this one.

More up my alley- progress on the Lesage tambour piece.  I've gone crazy pants on this piece in the last day and it is almost done.  This is a side view looking down on my frame from where I sit.  All the chenille leaves are completed except for one (you can kind of see it on the far right, the one that still needs stitched) and all goldwork & tube beads are finito.  The end is in sight in a day or two on this piece and then it's coming off the frame and something else is going in.  I'm anxious for my "Ta-da!!" moment here.  It has many tiny parts that needed stitched, and is fairly equal measure tambour and straight embroidery, plus I had the challenge of finding a suitable metallic gold thread that is a different brand that what I got in Paris, after I ran out of the Parisian metallic gold.  That thread I have to order and shipping is 23 euros, just for shipping!  So a wait is in order and after a city-wide search for the perfect color match and durability test, I found it in the most unexpected thread-- Coats & Clark.  Inexpensive and perfect and super strong.   With this thread, I finished up the stems and one gold leaf.  I can't tell the difference, so I am excited to have discovered this.  They had a number of metallic colors, too, at Joann Fabric.

Back to the rooster, though.  I really want to get this one finished.