To Hook or To Burn?

One day she showed up at one of our open classes with a new pattern: Sahand, a Persian-style rug she had designed for an upcoming Rugger’s Roundtable, her instructional newsletter for her clients. I immediately said: I want to hook this design . . . only I’d like it a little longer and I’d like to hook it my scrappy way in a wide cut. 

That was no problem for Jane, and she gave me a newly drawn and elongated pattern. I started hooking the center medallion that very afternoon using #8-cut scrap wool with just a little #6-cut wool for what I called the filigree detail. All went well for a day or two. I quickly hooked the smallest center medallion plus a bit more. But, by the time I went to the Thursday night hook-in, I had realized that the pattern had slipped when it was being drawn, making the design crooked on the grain of the weave, necessitating ditch jumping lines for an outside perimeter. While I wasn’t exactly sure, at this stage, how much the design elements were off, I could tell they were off a lot—more than I would be willing to tolerate. While I liked my scrappy take, I could not continue with things as they were. While the obvious option was to just start over with a new pattern, I did not feel good about making that suggestion. Besides being a gift from Jane, that pattern had been quickly drawn for me and even extended in length by my request. When drawing it, I doubt that Jane made a new paper pattern to reflect my new length wishes. As the pattern was originally composed as a center medallion with four similar corners, I suspect she just drew a center medallion, then spotted the newly located four corners a little further from that center. That could easily account for the slippage of the design.