Today was the Day

Have you ever headed out on the road with multiple options to get where you going and you're certain the roads you chose were the absolute, without a doubt, indubitably, wrong choices?  It took me 60 minutes to go 23 miles.  Not that I could have hoofed it on two feet to get there faster but jeez!

I met Holly out at Great Lakes Crossing Mall for her anniversary dinner, minus her husband.  I really wanted to give my present to both of them but, oh well.  We walked around the mall a bit, looking in the stores, deciding where to eat.  We settled on 'Toby Keith's I Love This Bar & Grill'.  Before she could get her hands on the grub I handed her the bag with her gift in it.

I really do hope that Kevin didn't spill the beans but I couldn't be certain.  Either way she loved her gift:

I began hooking 'The Forest Journey' when it seemed for sure that she and Mike would end up together.  I didn't expect it to take nearly 4 years for me to finish it but that's the way life goes sometimes.  The pattern was originally done by P J Rankin-Hults as a folk paper cutting design but was adapted for rug hooking by Kris Miller of Spruce Ridge Studios, and finished at 17 1/2" x 47 1/2", so it's a pretty good sized rug.  Kris also dyed about 90% of the wool I used.  I used a Puritan frame, a Townsend cutter to cut the wool into 1/4" strips except for the animal outlines which were 6/32" and a plain ol' Joan Moshimer primitive hook.  Fancy cutter, un-fancy hook.  Go figure.  I used cording and wool yarn, Cascade 220 and Classic Elite Skye Tweed, to finish the edges.  I would use this method again in a heartbeat -- so much easier than using twill tape to bind it --

And of course I had to make a label for it.  Behind the duck cloth label is a piece of paper with more details about the rug pattern, maker, etc.

Here are some close ups of the animals:

I sure hope Mike 'gets' it.  Holly said this would be a family heirloom so I think that's about as much praise as you could ever hope for!

After we ate out meals -- note to self, skip the spinach artichoke dip soup, and drank our drinks ($8 each for a glorified Arnold Palmer) we headed out, first stopping for a photo op:

Holly did get on the bull but it wasn't actually functioning:

It's a little blurry but you get the point.

With that we headed for home and a much less stressful drive.

Tomorrow at work will be very quiet with half the staff or more out of the office.  Hopefully I'll have time to finish up my mid-year review and get caught up ahead of a very busy week there next week.