Prairie Harvest Rug Hooking School



WCRHEA

May, 2014

Hi everyone,

We in the Saskatoon guild are alive and well. We have members scattered in many communities and two provinces, but the group attending regularly is small enough that we now take turns meeting in members’ homes. This means we now meet twice monthly from 2:00 -7:30 pm instead of just two hours in the evening. This gives us plenty of time for visiting, sharing a potluck dinner and we get lots more hooking done.

Thank you to everyone for taking turns at the monthly newsletter. In mine, I have put together a few ideas and ramblings. I hope you will find something of interest, if nothing else, some very good recipes!

I hope to see you in September at Prairie Harvest School. It certainly was difficult to choose a class with so many interesting topics and talented teachers. It will be a great learning opportunity and I so look forward to seeing everyone.

Are you planning your entertainment on the Fairy Tale/Nursery Rhyme theme?

Take care,

Rita Smith

Hooking in a style resembling Metis beadwork

Rug hooking has mimicked a variety of other artistic styles- Fracktur, Stained Glass, Mosaic, Celtic knots, etc. ….so why not beading?

It the winter I taught a class of beginners in Prince Albert. The lady who invited me works as an instructor with the Gabriel Dumont Institute where she teaches adult students Metis/First Nations cultural arts. The class was held in her home where her daughters entertained everyone with Metis fiddling. It was a very enjoyable experience.

In the past, Metis women on the prairies hooked rugs. It would be wonderful if hooking was again taught through cultural programs.

On our recent trip to the Royal Alberta Museum for the preview of the show that features the hooked grain elevators, I spent time admiring the displays of beadwork from the 1800s. The designs are so wonderful, balanced and pleasing to the eye. The makers of the pieces were true artists.

At our recent rug hooking retreat, several of us, with guidance from Heather Norquay, tried our hand at this technique. I am hooking my piece with #8 cut beads and #4 cut background. It helps if you don’t pack the bead loops too closely and keep the backing loops lower. I haven’t used an 8 cut in many years and I’m reminded that I really enjoy hooking this width.

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Heather Norquay’s rug, design adapted from a piece of beadwork in St. Boniface, MB collection.

Adventures in traditional proddy

At the last rug school I tried my hand at traditional proddy, which is poked through from the back of the design. There is also a tool, similar to needle-nose pliers, that you can use to add prodded pieces from the front of the design, but I was interested in using the historical method. A neighbour built a frame using a plan provided by an Australian lady, Miriam Miller, in her book, Proggy and Hooky Rugs.

I used a video from Gene Shepherd’s Internet Rug Camp to learn how to attach the backing to the webbing on the frame. The backing is turned under about 2 inches all around with corners mitred. The narrow ends of the design are then sewn to the webbing. You prod through all layers, which results in a finished piece- no binding required. I used blanket and coat wool, torn to ½ inch. This produced a lot of lint, so I switched to cutting with a #10 Townsend blade. I then attached masking tape to my desk and marked it with a line every 3 inches. I could then lay the long strip on top of the tape and quickly cut it into 3-inch lengths for prodding.

I very much enjoyed making the rug. I leaned the frame on my computer desk and watched Netflix as I prodded away.

Miriam Miller’s frame design given to Patti Marken ( with permission to share) on her visit to Narrawilly Farm in Australia.

This is the same design used in the book.

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A Frank Lloyd Wright style design for a stained glass window, traditional

prodding by Jeannine Smith

The Elevator Rug Exhibit

After four long years, the elevator rug exhibit is in its final show at the Royal Alberta Museum in Edmonton until August 4th. I’m hoping those attending Prairie Harvest School will help return rugs to their owners so we don’t have to ship many. The exhibit received positive reviews in every community.

Teaching Rug Hooking to Children

The first group I was invited to teach were children in Grades 1-4 in a Montessori school. The goal was to produce a work of art for auction at a fund raising event for the school. The event was a very posh brunch at a country club.

At the time I had a collection of very inexpensive 10x12” wooden picture frames from thrift stores and garage sales. To these frames I stapled backing and drew 2 rectangles. Each child chose colors from a tub of precut worms and hooked a rectangle. I was pleasantly surprised by their ease in learning to pull loops. The rectangles were attached to a backing, framed, and sold for over $700! (It seems the program has some wealthy parents.)

The school purchased materials and continues rug hooking as an annual art activity.

Grade 1-4 student produced this for their school fundraising auction. The piece was framed after the sale.

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My second group was made up of Grade 10 Art students in Davidson, SK. The girls made their own frames in the Industrial Arts shop. They also chose their own designs. Their teacher came to a Saskatoon guild’s hook-in where she watched us work and learned what type of designs would be appropriate for hooking with fabric in a wide cut. Arctic Fleece is a good material for this type of project as it is inexpensive and readily available in a multitude of colors. The texture is quite velvety when hooked. The patterns they chose were suitable for wide hooking and appropriate to their interests. Strips were cut by rotary cutter or hand-cut. The girls did a good job.

This winter I taught rug hooking to a group of girls, aged 9-12, who are home-schooled but congregate for certain activities. One of the mothers was my contact. I forwarded a collection of public domain designs, gleaned from the internet, as a sample to show the amount of detail that would work. If you search ‘line drawings’ or ‘coloring pages’ there are many to choose from. There are also coloring books with simple objects to use as designs.

Our guild now owns frames, built by Gloria, that are available for use when we are invited to teach. Again the linen backing was stapled on and Arctic Fleece was used, along with left over woolen worms. Adults cut strips with a rotary cutter.

The finished pieces were pressed and bound by serging the backing, folding twice to the back and hand sewing down. A skewer was added to the top and a ribbon was attached so the piece could be hung on the wall. The girls did a marvelous job and you can see how pleased they are.

Some of the children, ages 9-12

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Celtic Designs

I follow a blog called Hooked on the Lake, written by Loretta Moore of Godfrey, ON.

Loretta posts many pictures of rugs and shows interesting ways to repurpose her ‘junking’ finds, to which she usually adds a primitive hooked piece.

Here is Loretta’s tip about public domain Celtic designs.

A number of people have asked me about the designs that I used for my Celtic pieces. When I first started looking for Celtic rughooking patterns I found a few but nothing that was really what I was looking for - something designed for WIDE CUT. So I searched for clipart that could be used as inspiration and one day discovered a wonderful website. This site offers free clipart in both colour and black and white versions that you can enlarge to the size you need. I used this site for a number of pieces - I printed off, made the changes I needed to and then enlarged and transferred the designs onto linen. I wanted to use 8.5 cut and found the designs were simple enough or could be simplified to accommodate this size cut. Check out  - there are dozens of different designs.

Copyright law

This is Canadian law as it applies to quilt patterns. I’m thinking much of it applies to rug hooking as well.



These recipes were a hit at one of our hook-ins. Enjoy.

Taco Soup

1 lb browned hamburger

1/4 cup chopped onion

1 16 oz can tomatoes with juice and 1 16 oz can of kidney beans with juice

1 can corn

8 oz tomato sauce

1 envelope of taco mix seasoning

Simmer for 15 minutes. Serve with corn chips, shredded cheese and sour cream.

Cranberry Nut Muffins

1/4 c salad dressing

1/4 cup orange juice

2 beaten eggs

2 cups fresh or frozen cranberries

2 cups flour

3/4 cup sugar

1 tsp baking soda and 1 tsp. baking powder

1/2 cup chopped nuts

2 tsp. grated orange rind

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease 18 muffin tins. Combine dressing, orange, eggs, and berries; Combine dry ingredients and stir wet into dry. Bake for 20-25 minutes

Quick-Drop Biscuits with Old Cheddar

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

Sift before measuring: 1 3/4 cups all purpose or whole wheat flour.

Mix in a bowl with 1 tsp salt, 2 1/2 tsp baking powder

Add: 2 to 6 tbsp chilled butter or shortening or combination of both. I used about 3 tbsp butter and about 1/2 cup grated old cheddar. You can experiment with the combination that works for you.

Cut solid shortening into dry ingredients with a pastry blender until the mixture is of the consistency of coarse corn meal.

Add, all at once, 1 cup milk. Stir the dough for 1 scant minute. Drop on to non-greased sheet and bake 12 to 15 min until lightly browned.

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