Rug hooking: yarn or fabric?

A few weeks ago, I posted about starting a hit or miss kind of rug with odds and ends of hand spun wool yarns I deemed tough enough to be rug-worthy.  I had some questions about using wool yarn instead of wool fabric, but turned up little in my brief search on the internet...so I purchased Judy Taylor's updated edition of Joy of Hooking with Yarn.

While I'm waiting for a lightning bolt of design inspiration to hit me, I've been plying skeins of singles into two and four ply yarns to use in whatever this next rug will be.  One day, while peddling my little heart out at the wheel, I had a minor epiphany:  why the heck am I buying wool yardage to cut into strips when I am about buried in wool and wool yarns?  Hmmmm...well...maybe because my first and only attempt at hooking with yarn left me feeling a bit unsatisfied.  Maybe because I feel like it will take longer (not a valid excuse in my book)?  Maybe because I've not been particularly inspired by the pieces I've seen, so far, hooked with yarns?  Maybe I like the look of rugs hooked with wool strips better than those hooked with yarns?  Or, as my new hooking friend Andy mentioned, am I a wool snob of some sort???

So that's what's been on my mind, while I've been busy packing up the last of the mess that's moving home from the former yarn shop, or pulling some weeds here and there, which is somehow therapeutic.

What do you think???

New roving

Among my many bad habits, buying more roving to spin is high on the list.  Regardless of the fact that I already own what might well add up to a hundred or more pounds of wool to dye and spin, somehow I have little control when Ani has her freshly dyed rovings hanging up to dry.  It's the magpie effect, I think she calls it.  I start pawing through the many color combinations and feel compelled to pick a favorite.  You know how it is...someone else's toys always look to be more fun than our own.

This past week, it was some Rambouillet roving that caught my attention.  Also known as French Merino, this is an old breed that was begun around 1786, when Louis XVI bought some Merino sheep from his cousin, King Charles III of Spain, and bred them with his own selection of English long wool sheep.  I've never been wild about spinning Merino wool but am loving this stuff.  It is light and soft and draws like magic.  I'm spinning it for some two ply lace weight yarn, with no specific project in mind...just that I like to spin finer yarns when I have time. 

Sorry, Robyn.  I thought of you when I did it, really I did.