Long-Term Project Completed

Elizabeth Rug. 40x18.5", 2025. Pattern copied WITH PERMISSION from Elizabeth Stagl. (Please note that the pattern cannot be purchased from her, or anyone that I know of) Color Planned and hooked by me using #6 wool strips,

This rug has quite the story to it.

My friend Elizabeth made the rug in an entirely different colorway years ago.  I fell in love with hers on first sight and drooled over it for a few years.  I asked about the pattern but she had seen the image "somewhere in South Africa" on her travels and didn't remember where.  The image she had seen was not a rug pattern, but she made a rug from it. 

I tried and tried to find the image, searching books, websites, and using Google Image, etc, but I could never find anything even remotely resembling it.  So after a few years of searching and drooling, I asked Elizabeth if she would allow me to copy her rug.  She graciously gave permission, and I took photos and created my own copy on paper of the pattern.  That was hard!

A few more years passed (about 7 years, truth be told), and I was finally ready to start.  I began hooking using the above colors.  I hooked almost all of one of the full squares, and then I had to start work on a very demanding teacher training program in an unrelated-to-rug-hooking area.  It took all my time, and I had to put the rug aside, so I carefully folded up the  partially hooked rug, the paper pattern (just in case) and all the wool, and put it away.  Three years later, I went to the storage space and pulled out the wool and paper pattern.  No rug.  I tore the house apart and looked everywhere.  No rug. 

All that work for nothing.

Months went by while I considered whether to re-draw (OMG, so laborious!) and begin all over again.  I consulted with friends.  Everyone, including me, told me that I was likely to find the rug the minute I tried to re-do the whole thing.  You know--the way when you lose a valued object,, you search everywhere and can't find it, you buy another and within minutes you suddenly stumble across the original somewhere you never thought to look.  And now you have two.

More months went by.  I continued looking and the rug never surfaced.  Finally in despair but determined to finish, I knocked myself out redrawing the pattern (twice this time, to get it right) and started hooking all over again. 

The original rug has never showed up.  I made very slow progress all last year and finally just finished.  Good grief, what a load of work, but I love it.

How much do you want to bet the original partly-done piece shows up in the next week or so?  What do I do with that, if it does?