Virginia Rugfest 2013

The Shockoe Slip Rug Hookers of Richmond, Virginia, do an amazing job of hosting the Virginia Rugfest and Hook-In each spring. It is always a lively gathering where hookers catch up on each other's projects.

The marketplace included vendors like Notforgotten Farm, Mary's Wool Garden and Rebecca Erb's Wool Studio. There were great things to shop for and yards of wool to ogle. Since I don't have a current hooking project needing wool, I enjoyed hunting for wool for my friends' rugs. And, bonus, there are door prizes and raffles throughout the day!

I won this pretty bundle of wool from Mary's Wool Garden in the door prize raffle.

This year's featured speakers were Judy Carter and Leonard Feenan. They spoke about the "Eye See You" and "Eye See You II" projects. Leonard designed the first rug based on an idea by Judy. Judy hooked the rug. 

Eye See You, hooked by Judy Carter

Eventually, the idea came to turn each eye into its own rug and a team of rug hookers worked to create the huge "Eye See You II" installation. Both projects were on glorious display at the Rugfest, the last showing of the complete "Eye See You II" rugs. Read more about it at Eye See You  on Judy's website. Fantastic work that pictures just don't do justice to. It was such a treat to see the rugs in person, almost too much to take in.

Eye See You II, hooked by multiple artists

It's fun to figure out what animal the eyes belong to...

A rug hooker friend got the striking envelope below in the mail from the World Wildlife Fund. I thought it fitting for this post.

Whipped!

Finished the rug just in time to bring to Virginia Rugfest on Saturday.

"Meshed Primitive" by Jane McGown Flynn.

Whip it, whip it good

I am trying to finish some projects that have been on hold for too long...I am afraid that there are too many to count!

One is a small oriental-style rug. It was started by a dear hooking friend who no longer cared to finish it, so  she passed it along to me. That was in late 2011 and it landed in my lap at a time I was between hooking projects. It was really nice just to have a project to hook on, so I took to it quickly. I think I finished the hooking in less than a few weeks. But once I finished the hooking of the piece, the actual finishing of the rug held little allure...

So, now I'm finally finishing it which involves an entirely different mindset than actually hooking it.

I prefer using the excellent "fold-forward finish" of Cindi Gay which she outlines in her rug e-school on her website cindigayrughooking.com.

Edge of rug, ready for whipstitching

This finish involves sewing around the entire piece multiple times and hand-basting the backing twice toward the right side of the rug. This helps to form a firm edge to whipstitch over. There is also no need to use cording to give support to the edge with this technique, which is a huge plus to those of us already averse to finishing.

Whipping in progress

One finished corner, three more to go...

I use three strands of Paternayan Persian tapestry yarn from my stash to whip the edges of the rug. It was an expedition in itself to find the correct shade of navy from my numerous storage boxes of tapestry yarn that live in my garage. I guess when I labeled  the boxes "blues", I failed to see the need to be more specific. The perfect match was found in the 6th box of "blue" yarns.

The whipping process is tedious, but necessary for a nice finish. It's also a treat to see the rug starting to look more and more complete as I cover the burlap backing.

Will hook for wool

I was paging through a book called Made in New York: Handcrafted Works by Master Artisans the other day. I am always happy to see books touting artisans working in traditional crafts, but I was surprised to see an entry for a "Hooked rug weaver". I have never heard any "hooker" (that's what we call ourselves) refer to rug hooking as weaving or refer to a rug hooking frame as a loom as in the book description. Definitions are so important and the fact that this book is not using the correct terminology does a disservice to rug hookers and weavers alike. And please, don't get me started on the entry for the actual weaver in the book. argh.

Here are some of the tools that rug hookers use to hook their rugs.

Rug hooking frame, this one is a Pittsburgh lap frame and rests on my lap while hooking. 

Various rug hooks (hand-turned by my original teacher Mamie Adair's late husband) and wool strips on burlap

Some hooking in progress on the frame, showing the hook pulling the strip of wool through the burlap. Strips of wool can be cut by hand or with cutters that have cutter heads designed to cut the wool into specific widths. I don't have a photo of my wool cutter here but it is definitely not the "fettucine machine" that the Made in New York book mentions.

Here is Rice Bag in progress, the olive background was hooked using wool yarn