Do you fuss over making your loops perfect? Don’t!

Deanne Fitzpatrick rug hooking

For all my rug hooking students who yearn to make perfect loops, watch a master, Deanne Fitzpatrick of Novia Scotia. Are perfect loops so perfect after all? Be careful what you wish for.

Hooked Rug Gallery: Beginner Square

squares-by-sylvania-ladies

This is the project that I encourage all beginners to start with for many reasons: All straight lines, no curves Small enough to finish in a short time, often less than a week Inexpensive Useful. Makes the best coaster. You get to pick your own colors! Get it on the Backing Start with a piece [...]

How to Dye Wool for Rug Hooking: Getting Started

Just getting started can be the most difficult step. My best advice is to arm yourself with information, the right tools and enough wool so that if something goes wrong, you can try again. The first step is to get supplied. Order from PRO Chem the following items:

How Important is Hooking Technique?

Eve's Garden hooked by Meryl Nelson, Cape May, NJ

Kelly, a past student, had an email question about hooking techniques.  I will explain more over the next couple of posts. First, I view hooking technique as a way to make hooking easier on your body.  I am not worried about how the loops look.  In fact, most of hooked rugs I admire have loops [...]

Day 434 Background

This entry is part 25 of 33 in the series Room Sized Rug

One question that I hear often is about background. What direction do you hook? To answer this question fully I would have to write a full article. But to show you my favorite way to hook a background is easy. The first picture below shows the first step I take. I am using my Antique [...]

Hooking the circle border

This entry is part 19 of 33 in the series Room Sized Rug

Another post I found in my drafts file…. I am still in the middle of rug camp season. Three more classes and one family vacation (my parents’ 50th wedding anniversary) and at the end of July I will be on my own for a while. In the meantime, I had a tiny bit of downtime [...]

To dye or not to dye.

I found this in my drafts. It was never posted. I received a question and thought I would answer it in a new post. I am a newbie to rug hooking, and have a slightly silly question. Do you buy undyed wool? Or do you over dye? New rug hookers are often frustrated when their [...]

Day 94 How to hook crooked loops not straight ones

This entry is part 16 of 33 in the series Room Sized Rug

My focus for the last two years has been to “get crooked.” I thought I had made a breakthrough with Karen Kahle at Sauder Village in 2006. I was working on her Antique Rose Runner during the lunch break. All the other students were off eating and I was so excited about what and how [...]