Okay, so you know how I’ve been slowly working on a set of woo rug-hooked chair pads for my Mom, right? Well, get a load of this one:

Yeah, too cute huh? I think this is now my favorite. I’ve been doing a different design on each pad. I’m using up whatever wool i have lying in my stash, which is a real crazy variety of colors.
I’ve learned that for wool rug-hooking there are preferred qualities of wool. The loosely woven wools that I suspect have some polyester woven into them, when washed will not felt up at all – – these are junk and fall apart when cut into the narrow strips needed for rug-hooking. Oh, by the way, I’m cutting my wool strips less than 1/4 inch wide. The very high quality wool that is quite thick, when washed, felts up quite thick. These strips are harder to pull thru the background fabric, so i use these sparingly even though I have gorgeous marbled colors in them. My preferred wool is the middle of the road wools, that when washed/felted, are what baby bear would like “just right”. They cut and pull thru easy.
My wool stash consists mostly of shirts, skirts, scarves from thrift stores . . . . so while one might think “wool is pricey”, it doesn’t have to be. There are lots of wool garments at thrift stores for pennies by comparison.
. . . . . . and my work goes on. =)