Hooking Leaves

Close-up of Leaf Sampler by Sibyl Osicka.

Beautifully shaded leaves require some advance planning. Use the shading guide and the tips in this article to bring colorful and eye-pleasing leaves to life in your work.

The leaf color should be chosen after the flowers have been selected. The leaf and the flowers should harmonize and look good together. Always have unequal proportions of leaf color in your project; for example, you could use 60 percent blue green and 40 percent yellow green. This combination will make the project look pleasing to the eye.

Before beginning to hook a leaf, decide if you wish to finger or mock/contour shade it. With fingering, you will have many more cuts of wool, and this is something I try to stay away from because of the traffic the rug will receive on the floor. If the project is a wall hanging or pillow, fingering is fine because of lack of wear.

This article is from the September/October 2013 issue. For more information on our issues, check out our issues page.