Hooking my First Rug

March 31, 2013

The first rug I hooked was an adaptation of an antique rug from a book called Seasons at Seven Gates Farm, hand-drawn by Sally Van Nuys. I'm sure most of you are familiar with this rug. At the time, I had very little recycled wool to work with and thought the neutral tones in the original  rug would be easy to achieve. To my dismay, I could not make the rug look the way I wanted so I decided to use color and started researching and playing with different techniques on changing colors without acid dyes. Keep in mind I had no idea what I was doing, this being my first experience dying wool and hooking a rug, hand-cutting every strip! My first experiment was simmering wool with onion skins, this changed the lavender /taupe wool into a warmer antique tone that I hooked in the Flower Pot and Bird, then I decided to try marrying the orange and green wool by simmering them together with detergent, this changed the orange wool into a warm brick red that I hooked into the hearts. I used plaid skirts for the darker flowers, simmering it with the dark brown background wool. I so enjoyed the creative process of hooking this rug that I couldn't wait to start another. All of you rug hookers out there know just what I'm talking about!!! So if you would like to try rug hooking and you're limited on wool try marrying complementary colors and dying with onion skins!!

Have a great day!

Louise