Back in the 70's we lived in a small country town in Western Australia. It was a time well before the invention of personal computers, iPads, or even a VCR and our household contained nothing more technological than a colour television...and even that didn't arrive in our lounge room until the later half of that decade.
Our Summers were busily spent watching sport on the TV, playing cricket in the backyard, riding our bikes, swimming at the local pool and running under the sprinkler when the temps got unbearable, but Winter was a bit tricky. The nights were cold, the air outside thick with smoke from the many fireplaces in town and the only thing that seemed to be on television were nature documentaries and the news, not ideal conditions for keeping children occupied and amused! One endearing memory I have of the 70's though is my family pulling together to make a latch hook rug.
The rug was to be in shades of green and beige and my father made a wooden gauge for us to wrap the wool around, which mum or dad would then cut leaving pieces of yarn all exactly the same length. I can remember the colours, the sound of the wool be cut, the piles of yarn all cut and ready to be added to the rug, the squares of colour being formed as we all worked diligently, but I can't actually remember the rug being finished. A part of me hopes it's sitting in a wardrobe or cupboard somewhere, and miraculously that there's enough wool left to finish it off!
Of course, in this day and age things are much simpler. My local craft shop even sells pre-cut lengths of wool in a multitude of colours, something that did sadden me a little, remembering all the time we had spent carefully wrapping and cutting our wool, but at the same time I was grateful as it is definitely a time saver when you're contemplating a latch hook project.
Our foray into the world of latch hooking in 2014 was a much easier and smaller undertaking than that 70's rug. We thought we'd do a little something for Valentine's Day and so out came the pink pre-cut wool, a small piece of canvas, a latch hook and a daughter who managed to put down her iPod for just enough time to get the project finished.
Our little heart was made by tracing a heart template onto our canvas and filling it in with our lovely pink, pre-cut wool. The same template, which we just cut and paste from google images and then adjusted the size in a word document, we also used on a blank card from Kaiser Craft. We traced around it onto the card and then cut it out from the centre so that our finished latch hook heart would sit inside it.
...and this is the finished project. A wonderfully textured, shaggy, 70's inspired memento for the most romantic day of the year.
Happy Valentine's Day
Deb
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