50 x 45 cm (20 x 18 in)
Materials and Equipment
- 2 x 61 cm (24 in) and 2 x 56 cm (22 in) artist’s stretchers
- Tracing paper
- Design
- Fine felt-tip pen
- Transfer pencil
- Dressmaker’s pins
- Iron
- Staple gun and staples or drawing pins
- Assortment of materials and yarn, including black material
- Hook
- Stapler remover or old screwdriver
- Piece of hardboard, cut to finished size of design
- Strong but not too thick string
- Large-eyed needle Thimble
- Picture frame
Ensure the edges of the hessian are straight when placed on the frame. Gently ease a thread from one edge of the hessian and pull it out - this will leave a line which can be used as a cutting guide.
Sketch your design and trace it on to tracing paper.
You will need to reverse the design when you transfer it on to the hessian. To do this, reverse the tracing paper and draw over the design again using a transfer pencil.
Pin the design down on the hessian with the transfer side face-down, ensuring that the design is traight and that the material is not distorted. Follow the liness of the design firmly with a hot iron, scecking to make sure that all the lines are being transfered on to the hessian by lifting up a corner of the tracing paper gently. If, when you take the design off, you find some of the lines are faint, just go over them with felt-tip pen.
Assemble your frame. The piece of hessian must be large enough to cover the frame to its outside edge. You need to have a frame at least 10 cm (4 in) larger on all sides than the size of the picture. Attach the hessian to the frame using a staple gun or drawing pins. Begin by stapling two sides to make an L-shape, keeping the threads of the hessian straight; the edge of the frame acts as guide. Then, stretching the hessian tightly, staple along the other two sides, using plenty of staples or drawing pins. Pay particular attention to the corners, bringing the staples right down to the edge.
Cut the back material into strips about 3 mm (1/8 in) wide, on the straight of the material. Working from the front, hook a single line of loops around all the outlines, including the edges. You should hook the outline slightly higher tan the rest of the work so that the loops do not get lost in the pile when you fill in the remainder.
Fill in your design using a variety of materials that suggest fields, sunlight on corn, water, or similar landscape subjects.
You can see the design is building up. Here the sky is being hooked, using strips cut from a variety of woolens, worsteds, jersey and random-dyed cotton.
When you have finished hooking your picture, remove it from the frame. Cut the surplus hessian from around the picture, leaving a border of about 7.5 cm (3 in) on all sides, and trimming across the corners but not too closely.
Place the hardboard squarely on the back of the picture, lining up with the edges of the design. Cut a long piece of string. Thread a large-eyed needle and make a knot at the other end of the string, then, turning the hessian under slightly to make a small hem (this stops the string from pulling the threads down), pull the string through until you reach the knot. Start at one end, just inside the corner of the picture, and lace from side to side. When you have used up the length of the string, simply knot another length to it.
When you reach the edge, go back over the lacing to the other edge and repeat on the other two sides, paying particular attention to the corners. Take care that there is not too much hessian in the corners as this will make it difficult to frame. Finally, hang the picture in a suitable frame.
