One of the rug groups I'm in has decided to take on this pattern as a group project.  Meaning, everyone in the group will work on this piece.  Everyone will add a few colors of their own.  Everyone will add their own touch as they hook.  It's the perfect rug to use up scraps.

One of our members kindly got us started, and I'm the 2nd person to begin to work on it.  I've added some beading, thrown a few colors into the circles (I'll be adding more scattered around the rug before I pass it on), and my goal now is to finish the boring black inner & outer borders so that others can focus more on the fun scrappy circles.  On Tuesday it'll be my turn to pass  it on to the next person.  I can't wait to see how this shapes up!

The rug up above is only the second "group effort" rug I've worked on. 

The other one, on the left, I designed myself 15 years ago.  My rug group from that era all worked on it; it was made for one of our members whose family had been traumatized by a violent crime.  She and her family were so badly traumatized I sense it's likely that after we gave her the rug, she rolled it up and put it away as it may have been too much to look at just then--a visible reminder of their terrible loss.

Still, I don't care if it ever sees the light of day as she would certainly have understood the love and effort that went into its making, and I know she would have been comforted by that care.   I don't believe I've ever shown it anywhere before.  Each hooked hand belongs to one of the members of our former group--we all wanted to reach out and send our rug hooking sister love and comfort.

This is what I appreciate about group efforts--when we come together to make something for someone, there is love and kindness present.  Everyone works together.  Everyone cares enough to add a piece of their heart.  And all the pieces work together to form the whole.

A single arrow is easily broken, but not ten in a bundle. - Proverb

And now it's 2 days later, and I'm about to pass this rug on to the next person to work on.  I'd hoped to get the outer border done but ran out of the black wool--more is on the way.  I added lines to the inner circles.  I worked on it all morning today, and wonder what the next person will do.

Aha!  "The end is near," as sidewalk doomsayers would say.

Ok, maybe not THAT near, as rug-binding goes very slowly, but at least it's finally underway.  The beads had to get set aside while I put in a final push to get this rug finished.

There must be a word that means something like, "Horror of beads flying through the air and scattering all over the house."  Right?  Like "Acrophobia" is horror of heights, and "Arachnophobia" is horror of spiders...

Flying-bead-o-phobia?

Can I just say how many times I've had it happen--gotten startled by something or made a sudden move and, BAM!  Beads go flying everywhere and I find them in rugs & on floors years later despite repeated vacuuming.

Twenty-five to thirty years ago I did a ton of beadwork, including this type.  Then I put the beads away.  That's how long it's been since I've had them out again, but it just felt like time to try this.  It's much harder with my older eyesight.  I'll give it a try and see what happens, and if I'd like to continue.

"I have wayyyy too many beads." --said no beader, ever.