I discovered rug hooking when I was invited to walk through the 1700's era brick house across the bridge from us here in southern Vermont, by a neighbor whose mother had lived in that house all her life. The neighbor's mother was an avid rug hooker, in the old New England style of overdying old wool clothing, cutting it into strips and hooking with a bent nail. The backing was just grain sack burlap, which she pieced together to make large rugs and runners. The old house had hooked rugs in every part of every room, stair treads on every stair, and hooked wall hangings-- even a hooked rug game board.
I was completely inspired. I asked my neighbor if she had learned how to hook rugs from her mother, and she said very meekly that there "is really nothing to it" and then went on to describe how her mother hooked the rugs. But there is actually quite a lot to rug hooking, and I learn something new every day.
The Raven and Pumpkin Rug was my very first rug hooking project. It is a 46"x64" rug which I made many mistakes on. First, not knowing any better, I used burlap as the backing, to the shock and horror of experienced rug hookers. But because I had no idea I would really get into rug hooking as an art form, and I believed I was just "trying out" rug hooking, I bought this cheap piece of 50"x70" burlap to play around with. I really had no idea what I wanted to make, so instead of cutting the burlap to a smaller size, I simply drew out a raven near the center of the burlap piece and started hooking with some yarn I had laying around the house. I kind of liked what it looked like, so as I finished the raven, I drew some roses and vines around it, and then some stars, and pumpkins. Again, making more mistakes than most people can even imagine, I did not even think about how to finish off the edges until I was very close to finishing the project. Worse, I hooked the outer area before finishing the center of the rug, resuling in the edges being too stiff and heavy to fold out of the way easily, so it became very hard to hook in the center. but amazingly it all worked out and I had a lot of fun with it.
I tried all different kinds of yarn, combining purple space-dyed mohair with cornflower blue wool, looping both fibers together to create a kind of three-dimensional two-toned purple-blue background- but of course, not measuring anything, I ran out of the colors that I needed and had to use other yarns to complete the background. I used chenille yarn for the leaf vines and roses, and bulky acrylic yarn for the pumpkins. At some point I realized that I should do something to finish off the edges, and so I took some velveteen upholstery fabric I had and cut long strips to make a nicely finished rug binding all the way around, with mitered corners. The edging did come out very nicely, luckily. And later when the rug was going to be entered in the Shelburne Museum "Hooked in the Green Mountains" show, I hid a matching sleeve along the top edge so that I could hang the rug on a 64" wooden dowel which I could slide in and out of the sleeve easily. The rug has a few "holidays" (spaces I missed), the raven's tail is a bit out of scale, and it is hard to see the raven's legs. I could easily fix all of this stuff now, but have decided just for fun to enjoy my first rug with all of it's silly mistakes, because it shows me how far I have come in less than two years of rug hooking.
What I do recommend to anyone who hooks with yarn is definitely try hooking with two fibers together in each loop just to try different effects. And I also advise to all beginners, use a good backing when you are just "goofing around that first time," because that first try may be in next year's show! Have fun!!
