Forget Me Not

"Please come to Boston for the springtime

I'm staying here with some friends

And they've got lots of room

You can sell your paintings on the sidewalk

By a cafe I hope to be working soon

Please come to Boston

She said, 'No, David, you come home to me."

~ Dave Loggins, 1974

For Neil

The Song I Hummed Every Time I Hooked This Rug
(Click on this link to hear the song! You can listen to the song while you read the blog!)

I am a hummer. I hum. I hum most especially when my heart is happy and sometimes when my heart is broke. Most every one of my rugs has a song that I attach to it. Most of the songs are classical music. Music is highly inspirational to me and when I listen to music as I hook, it seems my 'creation' springs a little heartbeat. The last few weeks I have been hooking the 'Forget Me Not' Rug. I have either hummed Dave Loggin's lyrics or I listened to his song over and over and as I do, so many memories have begun to surface.

This design started as a suggestion my husband made after we went up to our favorite mountain spot and walked this last April. I was still reliving the sunlit snow that hemmed in the path we walked that day. The air so crisp and full of pine- nothing to be heard for miles around except the sound of birds singing.

"Why do the smell of pine needles make me cry?" 
My Journal, April 2016

One of our first dates took place thirty years ago along a mountain river. We walked and talked as we got to know each other. He was on leave from the US Army and that was a prelude to our early married days that were full of long absences. Months and even two years at a time. All those times the only contact we had was through the written letters that I have hundreds of. Every time he would come back, the time was filled with laughter and disorientation as we had to settle in together...again.

Some of the letters. See the grungy one in the back? That one one was carried out on a field mission.

As I hooked this rug, the same song I hummed over and over- listening to it over and over. Over each loop, memories of all the letters we wrote back and forth, all the phone calls. All our mountain walks rushing through my mind. 

"Please come to Denver with the snowfall

We'll move up to the mountains

So far we can't be found."

For Neil and I it was not Denver or Boston- but Ft. Hood, Texas, Ft. Knox, Kentucky and Frankfort, Germany.  Home being Boise, Idaho. 

In my original plans for this design, I was hoping to extend the grass out pretty far and then have a treeline in the distance. That presented a problem as I realized that all that green would cause me to lose the bouquet and would not allow the couple to stand out as I wanted.

Would you like to know a little about this design as a pattern? Yes, it is available as a rug hooking pattern in my Etsy shop.

A Link:
My Vintage Heart Etsy Shop

This rug was made using both #8 and #5 cuts. The Forget Me Not Flowers were #5's as well as the bouquet stems. I also used a #5 for the little heart shaped stamp, postmark, and lettering. As always, I will gladly make a kit for you but DO KNOW that at any given time, I am working kits and they take TIME. I believe strongly in hand-dyeing each and every piece my self.  I really believe that color makes the rug and I see hand dyed wool as I once saw my paints- critical to 'painting' with deep expression- most literally a work from the heart and hands. That's just the way I see it.

"Are you the reason my happy heart sings? But definitely." ~Shirley Temple

Do you have a love story?

God bless you,

Yvonne

P.S. I love my guy. Can you tell?

Here he is sewing my patterns! Yes, he is my in house pattern finisher! 

Isn't he a gem?