What does a bicolor sunflower look like as a latched hook rug?

I said I wasn’t doing any more of these latched hook rugs.

Yeah, and just like a New Year’s Resolution, I did it anyway.

The plan was to use up the one leftover latched hook canvas and whatever yarns I still had from my NEBA/Mike’s latched hook project from last year. Went through my photos – and chose this one.

That is my photo A Bicolor Sunflower, which took a beautiful blue silk at the Durham Fair last year. You know what? I’m going with this. This is the image I want. Let’s turn this into a latched hook rug and be happy with it. And I’ll have more than enough time to finish it, bind it, and at least have it ready for Altamont.

Then the plan will be – use the sunflower latched hook rug at Altamont, while the NEBA/Mike’s rug will go to the New York State Fair and to Durham. Then, when the NEBA/Mike’s rug spends time at Historic Albany Foundation’s BUILT charitable auction, the sunflower can get some attention at Syracuse and Durham in 2024.

And maybe down the road, I could offer the print of A Bicolor Sunflower with the latched hook rug, making them a matched pair for sale.

I mean … why not?

I’ve already got the canvas … I’ve already got the pattern … and I’ve got most of the yarn. I just have to time my requests for more yarn from Herrschner’s so that I’m not running out of colors and waiting for 7-10 business days for new arrivals. 😀

So here’s how this works. I started in January 2023.

And I just finished the rug yesterday.

Here’s the progress, photo by photo, in this gallery spread.

This morning, I finished painting the back of the rug with stabilizing compound and stitched up the borders.

And this was the final result.

So now I can display two different rugs at various competitions. I’ll earmark this one for Altamont, and maybe later for Durham if things go well.

Then afterwards, I could save it for the New York State Fair in 2024.

Not a bad way to spend three and a half months, don’t you think?