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Early Vermont homemakers brought comfort and beauty to their abodes with hooked rugs of their own design. They drew inspiration from everyday objects and scenes in their world.
There are many strands in the traditions of making hooked rugs. I find inspiration in the history of the craft, in the beauty and durability of wool, and in the incredible accomplishments of other rug makers. Rug hooking is fun and relaxing. With simple tools and materials, you can make beautiful rugs that will last a long time.
There are seemingly endless possibilities and challenges. Can you hook a night scene, a snow scene, portraits, the ocean? Do you hook with narrow strips or wide? Can you make a very large rug, or a miniature? Do you like to treasure hunt the thrift shops for old wool, or do you use all new fabric. Dye or buy?
Nobody knows exactly what combination of influences resulted in the development of this beloved activity, but for about 200 years rug hooking has provided beautiful and useful items for the home, and a creative outlet for the rug makers. Although I am inspired by the deeply ingrained wisdom of “Use it up, wear it out, make do, or do without,” I use new wools, as well as recycled wool fabrics.
You can energize your rug imagination by taking a class, and they are not hard to find. There is a “Rug Camp” somewhere in North America just about any day in the year. There are great classes close to home at “Hooked in the Mountains” (Judith Dallegret’s incredible “Drawing for Rug Hooking” class made me want to draw every day) or at Green Mountain Rug School. These rug schools exhibit the teachers’ and students’ rugs—there is so much to learn by just looking. I live in beautiful Vermont full time, so sometimes I get away to Maine, Prince Edward Isle, or to Nova Scotia to see old rugs, or to take a class. The Home Farm triptych was begun at Deanne Fitzpatrick’s studio in Amherst, Nova Scotia.
This photograph was taken on the the front lawn of the Buttolph farm around 1933.