www.littlehouserugs.com
Creating Heirlooms
Featured Rug of the Month
July 2009
Hopes and Dreams Basket, 18"x22.5", cut wool on burlap
Hooked by Vickey Brickle-Macky, Cayce, SC
I haven't been hooking very long. I started in the Fall of '06 when I was looking for something else to do with my handspun yarns, other than knitting and crochet. I tried tapestry weaving and didn't like it that much, so I thought I'd try hooking with some encouragement by two friends, Barb Bennett in Iowa, who raises wonderful sheep and wools (http://barnettsheepandwool.com/default.aspx) and Sue Pinkney in Blaenffos, Wales, who was visiting me at the time I started hooking.
The Hopes and Dreams Basket rug was designed by me in conjunction with a hook-along on Gene Shepherd's blog at http://geneshepherd.com. If you look up Blog Hook in '09 on his blog you can read all the posts about it. The original design was a free pattern called "Noel Holly Basket" featured in the '08 Nov/Dec issue of Rug Hooking Magazine. The original design was by Connie Liftin & Marti Taylor of Mustard Seed Primitives. I tweaked the pattern a bit, because I didn't want to do a Christmas themed rug, so I used the essence of the design, which to me was the basket and flowers, but I decided to represent my family in the rug. The seven hearts correspond to my own seven children, and the stars represent my nine grandchildren (so far!). The hearts are in pinks and blues, (four girls and three boys) and the stars are in bright yellows for the six girls and gold for the three boys. I also decided to include banners with the words (my first attempt at doing lettering on a rug).
In October I'll be doing my first showing of my rugs at the Fall Heritage Festival at the State Museum in Columbia, SC, October 10th. All my time right now is in designing, creating and hooking rugs and items for the show. Once that is over I will be trying to market and sell my rug designs. I also hope to eventually teach rug hooking and have classes in the future, especially in SC since there are very few hookers in the state and I want to get more people interested in doing this wonderful craft. I do a blog called FanXstitch at http://fanxstitch.blogspot.com, and I can be found on Rug Hooking Daily, The Welcome Mat, several Yahoo rug hooking groups and on Facebook.
Do you have a rug you would like to see featured on this website? E-mail me! It can be a rug you've made, found or inherited, they all have interesting stories and we love to hear all about them. If your rug is featured, you will get your choice of a free half yard of linen, or one of our "I'm a HOOKER and PROUD of it" totebags, so send us your pictures! To view the many rugs that have already been featured, go to the archive.
