www.littlehouserugs.com
Creating Heirlooms
Featured Rug of the Month--
October 2007
Rooster Rug
Designed and hooked by Andrea Reinlander
18"x26" wool strips on linen
"This rug was originally designed to be an "inch rug." My instructor Marjorie told me that she liked my design and it could be an adaptation of an inch rug. I hooked this rug with #3-#7 wool strips, hand-dyed, and the chicken wire is done with shiny silver mixed thread.
"Inch rugs" are actually quite common (apparently there are books on the subject). Marjorie brought some books in for us to view. A lot of the inch rugs look like a mosaic-type design, with the repeat square, sometimes varying color with each square. Some inch rugs are designed on a grid, so the design is larger, but each inch is hooked one at a time. Hooking at an angle (diagonal in each small square) sometimes creates a more prominent design. A lot of people just prefer to have a big picture and hook the background as the inch part. There are many variations on the theme of an inch rug. The main point is you always have to count your threads, and perhaps even compensate if your linen is uneven (adding a few loops in one direction so the overall effect is square).
A lot of people in my guild found hooking inch rugs monotonous, but I perservered and counted my threads so the squares would be even, but found that linen is not perfectly square!"
Andrea Reinlander
Andrea has just created her own website (www.paintbythreads.com). Some of her designs were featured on this website in April 2007. If you would like more info about her designs, you can e-mail her.
Do you have a rug you would like to see featured on this website? E-mail me! If your rug is chosen, you will receive your choice of a free yard of linen, or a copy of my book, Hooking With Yarn! Every rug, whether it is an original hand-hooked rug, or an heirloom, has a story, and we want to hear them all!
To view all the rugs that have been featured on this website, go to our archive.
