Cynful Musings: Rug Hooking in Cobourg

Wednesday, May 3, 2017

Rug Hooking in Cobourg - Part 1

This past Sunday, I travelled to Cobourg with my friend Barb. She wanted to attend the exhibition portion of the annual conference of the Ontario Hooking Craft Guild.

Here's Barb looking at a display of "traditional" rug hooking.

However, the majority of the rugs we saw were nothing like the rugs our grandmothers used to make! I am posting these photos of just a few of my favourites, there were many more than I could possible include in just one post!

Various guilds from around the province (and one from Quebec) were displaying the rugs they had made. Oh my goodness, what a collection of eye candy it was!! Most booths were set up like the one below, with various rugs displayed side by side, all created by members of that particular guild.

This woman was sitting cross-legged on the ground, hooking a rug that was attached to a frame she had made herself. It was quite interesting to me to watch her work, as I'm not sure I had ever seen anyone hook a rug before (I have vague recollection of making a rug with two inch pieces of wool way back in the 70's but that wasn't at like what these rugs were like!). The rug behind her, with the hands, had been made by a collection of women and was going to be donated to a hospital for the children's wing. I believe the names of the various women creators were added on the other side of the rug, on the back of each individual's hand.

The rug below was a prize winner in a couple of categories. It was very unique and quite eye-catching. (Unfortunately, I can't tell you the name of any of the artists. The information was provided on pieces of paper hanging in front of each booth but it was too time-consuming to look up each rug by number on the list provided and then try to keep track of the names. My apologies to the hookers.)

This is an example of a "pictoral" rug design.

I know very little about rug hooking but Barb is a hooker and pointed out various things to me, such as the depth of the rug design below - how it draws in your eye into the tunnel as if it were three dimensional.