Celebrate Rug Hooking!
A Brief History
Someone, a long time ago, had an idea to pick up all those left over pieces of fabric and hook them together to create a rug. That rug probably created a cozy nook inside an otherwise chilly, drafty house. Woven wool has its origin in Scotland, so it’s reasonable to think that rug hooking heralded from this place a few centuries ago. Today, we cherish the vision and forethought of this peasant tradition.
Rug Hooking is nothing fancy. It’s a simple process of pulling strips of fabric or yarn through a backing. The finished product is rewarding to look at and provides a durable addition to any home. Hookers find this simple activity to be rewarding and relaxing, and their work is admired by observers and artists alike. Those of us passionate about rug hooking enjoy the entire process: finding the wool, dying it to suit our color schemes, cutting it into strips of varied widths, and hooking. Most of all, we enjoy the wholesome fulfillment of providing beauty and function to our homes to the delight of our families and friends.
American rug hooking began as a craft of poverty where crafters used left over materials that were available. The backing of burlap came from old grain and feed bags; these rugs date back to around 1850. Every tidbit of fabric not used as clothing was put into rugs. Yarn was considered to be too valuable for rugs and was instead saved for knitting and weaving. So, the tradition of using scraps of fabric for hooked rugs was established. Everything from cotton t-shirts to nylon stockings was cut and hooked into rugs.
The earliest evidence of hooked rugs dates back to the early part of the 19th century where floor mats were made in England. Workers in woolen mills collected thrums (scraps of yarn that measure 9 inches long). The weavers took these scraps home and pulled them through a backing. In the publication Rag Rug Making by Jenni Stuart-Anderson, Stuart-Anderson states that "...the technique of hooking woolen loops through a base fabric was used by the Vikings, whose families probably brought it to Scotland." Examples of this style of rug hooking can be found at the Folk Museum in Guernsey, Channel Islands that early rag rugs made in the same manner where produced here off the coast of France as well.
The modern preference for using only cut wool strips in hooked rugs originated with Pearl McGown (www.mcgownguild.com) was born in 1891 in Massachusetts. Her passion for rug hooking began at her mother’s feet while she was hooking a rug for their home. The McGown Guild was established in the 1930s and may have saved the craft from disappearing in the United States. Mrs. McGown popularized strict guidelines for rug hooking and formalized its study. However the Grenfell Mission had previously and as early as 1916 established the same strict guidelines as structured by Lady Anne Grenfell wife of Sir Wilfred Grenfell as indicated in Paula Laverty's book Silk Stocking Mats.
Rug hooking in the 21st century has evolved into two genres that are defined by the width of the wool strip.
Fine hooking generally uses wool strips measuring 1/32” to 5/32” wide. These designs include more intricate shading. Shading with these narrow strips is accomplished using over-dyed wool.
Primitive (or wide-cut) hooking uses wool strips measuring 6/32” to one half inch wide. Shading and highlights using wide strips is accomplished using various textures of wool such as plaids, checks, herringbones, etc. Wide-cut designs are generally less detailed and typify the naivety of rug hookers of the past (pre-dates Pearl McGown designs.)
Today, there are many well-known designers of commercial rug patterns and each exhibit their own distinct styles and techniques.
Rug Hooking Styles
Beauty is in the eye of the hooker. With a plan in mind, the design may end up being primitive (like the drawings in a child’s coloring book), pictorial (such as landscape or seascape), realistic (people and animals with recognizable features) or abstract (geometric designs). Here’s a little more detail about each style.
Primitive – Stay in the Lines
For the beginner hooker, the primitive style of hooking is probably the easiest to do. This style of hooking uses wide strips of wool, normally at least one quarter inch, and a very simple line drawings. It doesn't have to be realistic in style or coloring. Your child's coloring book has some excellent patterns for primitive rugs. OR, you can draw your own... that way if you aren't artistic, you can just say "hey, it's a primitive rug!"
Realistic – Creature Features
This type of rug is hooked using a much narrower strip of wool, up to one eight inch wide. The object is to make the rug as detailed and realistic as possible. You use several shades of each color and normally only use white wool that has been dyed to the exact shades needed. The rug actually comes alive before your eyes. An animal’s eyes appear to be looking at you when you examine the rug.
Pictorial – Let Your Mind Wander Out Yonder
With this style, you create a picture or scene such as a landscape. The width of the wool often varies. You use wool strips of a single width throughout the design or they may use a mixture of widths. The object is to use the width that makes the rug look real.
Abstract/Geometric – Diamonds, Triangles, Square, Oh My!
Another good beginner style, abstract and geometric designs are made up of squares, circles, triangles, diamonds or whatever designs you want to come up with. Again the width of wool can vary.
What can you Hook?
As this art continues to evolve, we are getting more daring. Rather than hooking parallel wool strips, we’re starting to see prodded hooking. Imagine pulling a piece of fabric shaped like an hourglass through your backing to create leaves of a plant or the petals of a flower.
Does rug hooking have to be flat? No! You can hook a three-dimensional piece or a collection of three-dimensional pieces that can adorn a corner. You’ll hook it flat and wrap it around a form. You’ll amaze yourself and your friends with your vision.
They’ll say, “You’re an artist!” And, it will be true.
Finding Your Ideas
Typically, we start a new hobby by using a pattern and following the guidance of a mentor in the field. At some point, it might be time to begin a hooking project that you inspire yourself. So here you are, backing in hand, lots of wool in many colors and several widths set aside. Where do you start?
Inspiration for your design will come from most anywhere. Your child’s favorite story book or nursery rhyme can help you identify a theme. How about “Hickory Dickory Dock?” It has a clock that struck 1:00 and a mouse in motion. Imagine a repeated Spanish tile design in front of your fireplace. How about a hooked stocking hanging from your mantelpiece. Once you start thinking, you’ll have to get a pen and paper to write down all your ideas!
Allow yourself to brainstorm for a while. Write down anything that comes to mind, no matter how difficult it would be to design and hook. Just keep thinking. Once you have a list of ideas, then you can get to the business of deciding just how you’ll begin.
Are you brainstorming for the first time? Will this be your first rug where you design the pattern yourself? Why not start small? Tiny rugs can be fun as a coaster or just as something to massage as you’re reading or relaxing.
Be Realistic with your Expectations
Hooking a face of a person? Wow! Start by viewing the face as a caricature and have some fun with the features. Like painting a face, there’s probably nothing more difficult. Using over dyed wool of varying shades and widths, you’ll be able to get define the features more intricately as you gain experience.
You’re ready!
So, that’s all it takes, a little daring and a hankering to experience an old fashioned craft that you will grow to enjoy and love. You will enrich your life!
A Brief History
Someone, a long time ago, had an idea to pick up all those left over pieces of fabric and hook them together to create a rug. That rug probably created a cozy nook inside an otherwise chilly, drafty house. Woven wool has its origin in Scotland, so it’s reasonable to think that rug hooking heralded from this place a few centuries ago. Today, we cherish the vision and forethought of this peasant tradition.
Rug Hooking is nothing fancy. It’s a simple process of pulling strips of fabric or yarn through a backing. The finished product is rewarding to look at and provides a durable addition to any home. Hookers find this simple activity to be rewarding and relaxing, and their work is admired by observers and artists alike. Those of us passionate about rug hooking enjoy the entire process: finding the wool, dying it to suit our color schemes, cutting it into strips of varied widths, and hooking. Most of all, we enjoy the wholesome fulfillment of providing beauty and function to our homes to the delight of our families and friends.
American rug hooking began as a craft of poverty where crafters used left over materials that were available. The backing of burlap came from old grain and feed bags; these rugs date back to around 1850. Every tidbit of fabric not used as clothing was put into rugs. Yarn was considered to be too valuable for rugs and was instead saved for knitting and weaving. So, the tradition of using scraps of fabric for hooked rugs was established. Everything from cotton t-shirts to nylon stockings was cut and hooked into rugs.
The earliest evidence of hooked rugs dates back to the early part of the 19th century where floor mats were made in England. Workers in woolen mills collected thrums (scraps of yarn that measure 9 inches long). The weavers took these scraps home and pulled them through a backing. In the publication Rag Rug Making by Jenni Stuart-Anderson, Stuart-Anderson states that "...the technique of hooking woolen loops through a base fabric was used by the Vikings, whose families probably brought it to Scotland." Examples of this style of rug hooking can be found at the Folk Museum in Guernsey, Channel Islands that early rag rugs made in the same manner where produced here off the coast of France as well.
The modern preference for using only cut wool strips in hooked rugs originated with Pearl McGown (www.mcgownguild.com) was born in 1891 in Massachusetts. Her passion for rug hooking began at her mother’s feet while she was hooking a rug for their home. The McGown Guild was established in the 1930s and may have saved the craft from disappearing in the United States. Mrs. McGown popularized strict guidelines for rug hooking and formalized its study. However the Grenfell Mission had previously and as early as 1916 established the same strict guidelines as structured by Lady Anne Grenfell wife of Sir Wilfred Grenfell as indicated in Paula Laverty's book Silk Stocking Mats.
Rug hooking in the 21st century has evolved into two genres that are defined by the width of the wool strip.
Fine hooking generally uses wool strips measuring 1/32” to 5/32” wide. These designs include more intricate shading. Shading with these narrow strips is accomplished using over-dyed wool.
Primitive (or wide-cut) hooking uses wool strips measuring 6/32” to one half inch wide. Shading and highlights using wide strips is accomplished using various textures of wool such as plaids, checks, herringbones, etc. Wide-cut designs are generally less detailed and typify the naivety of rug hookers of the past (pre-dates Pearl McGown designs.)
Today, there are many well-known designers of commercial rug patterns and each exhibit their own distinct styles and techniques.
Rug Hooking Styles
Beauty is in the eye of the hooker. With a plan in mind, the design may end up being primitive (like the drawings in a child’s coloring book), pictorial (such as landscape or seascape), realistic (people and animals with recognizable features) or abstract (geometric designs). Here’s a little more detail about each style.
Primitive – Stay in the Lines
For the beginner hooker, the primitive style of hooking is probably the easiest to do. This style of hooking uses wide strips of wool, normally at least one quarter inch, and a very simple line drawings. It doesn't have to be realistic in style or coloring. Your child's coloring book has some excellent patterns for primitive rugs. OR, you can draw your own... that way if you aren't artistic, you can just say "hey, it's a primitive rug!"
Realistic – Creature Features
This type of rug is hooked using a much narrower strip of wool, up to one eight inch wide. The object is to make the rug as detailed and realistic as possible. You use several shades of each color and normally only use white wool that has been dyed to the exact shades needed. The rug actually comes alive before your eyes. An animal’s eyes appear to be looking at you when you examine the rug.
Pictorial – Let Your Mind Wander Out Yonder
With this style, you create a picture or scene such as a landscape. The width of the wool often varies. You use wool strips of a single width throughout the design or they may use a mixture of widths. The object is to use the width that makes the rug look real.
Abstract/Geometric – Diamonds, Triangles, Square, Oh My!
Another good beginner style, abstract and geometric designs are made up of squares, circles, triangles, diamonds or whatever designs you want to come up with. Again the width of wool can vary.
What can you Hook?
As this art continues to evolve, we are getting more daring. Rather than hooking parallel wool strips, we’re starting to see prodded hooking. Imagine pulling a piece of fabric shaped like an hourglass through your backing to create leaves of a plant or the petals of a flower.
Does rug hooking have to be flat? No! You can hook a three-dimensional piece or a collection of three-dimensional pieces that can adorn a corner. You’ll hook it flat and wrap it around a form. You’ll amaze yourself and your friends with your vision.
They’ll say, “You’re an artist!” And, it will be true.
Finding Your Ideas
Typically, we start a new hobby by using a pattern and following the guidance of a mentor in the field. At some point, it might be time to begin a hooking project that you inspire yourself. So here you are, backing in hand, lots of wool in many colors and several widths set aside. Where do you start?
Inspiration for your design will come from most anywhere. Your child’s favorite story book or nursery rhyme can help you identify a theme. How about “Hickory Dickory Dock?” It has a clock that struck 1:00 and a mouse in motion. Imagine a repeated Spanish tile design in front of your fireplace. How about a hooked stocking hanging from your mantelpiece. Once you start thinking, you’ll have to get a pen and paper to write down all your ideas!
Allow yourself to brainstorm for a while. Write down anything that comes to mind, no matter how difficult it would be to design and hook. Just keep thinking. Once you have a list of ideas, then you can get to the business of deciding just how you’ll begin.
Are you brainstorming for the first time? Will this be your first rug where you design the pattern yourself? Why not start small? Tiny rugs can be fun as a coaster or just as something to massage as you’re reading or relaxing.
Be Realistic with your Expectations
Hooking a face of a person? Wow! Start by viewing the face as a caricature and have some fun with the features. Like painting a face, there’s probably nothing more difficult. Using over dyed wool of varying shades and widths, you’ll be able to get define the features more intricately as you gain experience.
You’re ready!
So, that’s all it takes, a little daring and a hankering to experience an old fashioned craft that you will grow to enjoy and love. You will enrich your life!
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