Friday, 7 June 2024
Columbia Pacific Heritage Museum, Ilwaco
We finally got down to a museum exhibit which has been on my mind, because I have a lifelong connection with hooking rugs. My grandmother made them, and I inherited her rug hooking frame and made many of my own, until I moved from Seattle to a house so small that I didn’t have enough room for the frame, much less my baskets of wool strips, sorted by colour. With more room now, I sometimes think of starting again, and this show was certainly inspirational. It is free and runs through July 6th, from Wednesday to Saturday, and the rug club is in attendance on Fridays from 10-03 P.M. You can read more on the museum site, here.
Strawberry Fields
Designed by Abby Schlingensiepen
Hooked by Betsy Millard
This rug was designed after a painting by Rebecca Wright. She was a graduate of the Portland Art Museum School in 1949 and was the mother of Abby and Betsy. The image is Mount Hood as seen from the Gresham strawberry fields.
I was immediately moved emotionally by seeing not only the rugs but such a large club devoted to making them. My grandmother would have loved this; she herself was part of a rug hooking club, show in this photo, in which she is on the right with a friend’s hand on her shoulder.
So let’s have a look at some of the rugs in the museum exhibit.
Gardener
Hooked by Toni Jette
Gardener is a pattern taken from the July 1915 Vogue magazine cover. Purchased from Ribbon Candy Rug Hooking Co.
Hooked by Toni Jette
This is a vintage postcard pattern from W. Cushing Co. I used wool strips, yarn and sari silk.
Designed and hooked by Jerre McDanald
I got sentimental and almost wept over the little furniture. My grandmother used to make tiny furniture out of tin and upholstered them with velvet cushions. I am sure she would have made tiny rugs if she had thought of it.
Three corners of the room had exhibits of smaller pieces, wall art and pillows.
Continuing around the room looking at the large rugs, I mostly focused on the garden and nature themes (because this is, after all, supposedly a gardening blog).
Sunflower
Designed and hooked by Mary Cohn
This design is based on the Gustav Klimt painting The Sunflower, 1906-1907.
Absolutely stunning in detail…
That would be my favourite had it not ended in a tie with this one, depicting the village of Seaview, where I lived for my first year on the Long Beach Peninsula. All of these places are so familiar to me.
Seaview Real and Imagined
Designed and hooked by Mary Cohn
Forest Floor, below, is another beautiful nature study.
Jacobean II
Hooked by Kitty Speranza
In Motion
Designed and hooked by Toni Jette
Hooked with all wool strips from mostly found wool. The round polka dots are worked in Waldoboro style-hooked with very high loops, then trimmed to shape.
Designed by Joan Moshemer
Hooked by Jerre McDaneld
I had a wonderful talk about rugs, my grandmother, and the club with Jerre and said “Let me take your picture so I remember who you are!”
This has inspired me to maybe stop by sometime when the club is in session, and also to write a post about my grandmother’s hooked rugs over on The Grandma Scrapbooks, the blog that I have dedicated to her. I will, some rainy or windy or too hot to garden day, and will share it over to here when I get it done.
What a beautiful post!
I thought rug hooking was a lost art/craft. Who knew that it is alive and well. Sounds like it is everywhere!
What, no male hookers? There must be. So I looked. “After retiring from his veterinary practice, John looked for a hobby to pursue, and a vintage postcard in an antique shop caught his eye. It was a man in western North Carolina hooking! When John realized that he could easily correct mistakes by re-hooking, he was confident that this was his true art form! Rug hooking also appeals to him because he enjoys dyeing wool, recycling wool clothes and making rug hooking patterns.” https://rughook.com/pages/john-leonard-rug-hooking-pattern-designer (The website includes many examples of his work, maybe also of his wife.) Always something new to learn. 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
There was one man seated at the rug hooking club’s table 🙂
>
LikeLiked by 2 people
I used to walk through a room of rug makers on my way to an evening activity and they always looked very cheerful.
LikeLiked by 3 people
The rugs and pillows are beautiful, Skyler! I think many of these almost “lost arts” can be kept alive, at least by increasing necessity to make things for oneself.
LikeLiked by 1 person
One thing stopping me from making more rugs is I don’t even know anyone who’d want a hand hooked rug as a gift and I don’t have room for more. I also don’t know quite how to source the wool clothing to cut up. I never thought of dying wool like these artists do! I guess I’d go to the local thrift store that has a bag sale, where you can stuff a paper bag full of as many clothes you can fit for a smallish price. I also used lighter fabric cut into wider strips for a color I wanted.
>
LikeLiked by 1 person