In the United States, yarn was not a fiber of choice if one did not have access to thrums. Fiber and fabric that was no longer suitable for clothing was often incorporated into rugs. Antique hooked rugs were created on burlap after 1850 because burlap was readily available as grain and feed bags. Since hooking was a craft of poverty, rug makers put to use whatever materials were available. Rug hooking was originally developed in England as a method of using leftover scraps of cloth. Today, rug hooking has been labeled in Canada as a fine art and has gained a much wider respect across the world.Ī modern hooked rug from Lebanon, New Hampshire. It was considered a country craft in the days when the word country, used in this context, was derogatory. Another sign that hooking was the pastime of the poor is the fact that popular ladies magazines in the 19th century never wrote about rug hooking. Girls from wealthy families were sent to school to learn embroidery and quilting fashioning floor rugs and mats was never part of the curriculum. Women employed whatever materials they had available. Poor women began looking through their scrap bags for materials to employ in creating their own home-made floor coverings. The vogue for floor coverings in the United States came about after 1830 when factories produced machine-made carpets for the rich. In its earliest years, rug hooking was a craft of poverty. Rug hooking as we know it today may have developed in North America, specifically along the Eastern Seaboard in New England in the United States, the Canadian Maritimes, and Newfoundland and Labrador. However, in the publication "Rag Rug Making" by Jenni Stuart-Anderson, ISBN 978-1-90, Stuart-Anderson states that the most recent research indicates ".the technique of hooking woolen loops through a base fabric was used by the Vikings, whose families probably brought it to Scotland." To add to this there are sound examples at the Folk Museum in Guernsey, Channel Islands, that early rag rugs made in the same manner were produced off the coast of France as well. Kent pointed out a reference in Shakespeare's Merry Wives of Windsor. The origins of the word thrum are ancient, as Mr. These by-products were useless to the mill, and the weavers took them home and pulled the thrums through a backing. Workers in weaving mills were allowed to collect thrums, pieces of yarn that ran 9 inches (23 cm) long. The author William Winthrop Kent believed that the earliest forebears of hooked rugs were the floor mats made in Yorkshire, England, during the early part of the 19th century. Rug-hooking has been popular in North America for at least the past 200 years. When using the hand-torn technique the rugs are usually done in a primitive motif.ĭesigns for the rugs are often commercially produced and can be as complex as flowers or animals to as simple as geometrics. These precision strips are usually cut using a mechanical cloth slitter however, the strips can also be hand-cut or torn. Wool strips ranging in size from 3/32 to 10/32 of an inch (2 to 8 mm) in width are often used to create hooked rugs or wall hangings. In contrast latch-hooking uses a hinged hook to form a knotted pile from short, pre-cut pieces of yarn. The loops are pulled through the backing material by using a crochet-type hook mounted in a handle (usually wood) for leverage. Rug hooking is both an art and a craft where rugs are made by pulling loops of yarn or fabric through a stiff woven base such as burlap, linen, or rug warp. A craftsperson creates a hooked rug by pulling lengths of cloth, usually wool, through a woven fabric, usually burlap.
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