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Rug Hooking Defined

Traditional Hooking

 How Do you Do Traditional Rug Hooking?

 Traditional rug hooking uses a hand tool (similar in shape to a crochet hook with a wooden handle) to form a looped pile from fabric strips or yarn on an even-weave backing fabric. Punch needles and speed hooks are also used to make hooked rugs. Although the hooking techniques are different, the finished rugs are very similar.

Traditional rug hooking is not the same as latch-hooking, which uses a hinged hook to form a knotted pile from short, pre-cut pieces of yarn.

How Old is Rug Hooking ???

Jute was invented in the 1820’s and became readily available in the form of feed sacks across North America by the 1850’s. At this point in time hooking began in earnest. Rug hookers were not so picky about what they hooked with at first. They used woolen yarn called "thrums" discarded by weavers in the mills, cotton rags, wool fabric, wool yarns, flannel, paisley and homespun. They used everything that was cheap and readily available.

Then around 1880 an man named of Ebenezer Ross of Toledo, Ohio started experimenting with the idea of rug hooking at a faster speed. He had probably observed his wife's slow progression on a traditionally hooked rug and, being the inventive type, thought he could improve on the process. In 1881 he introduced a punch needle now called a rug shuttle; this is the earliest documented punch needle. From then on there have been many forms of punch needles.

Although punch needle rug hooking technically is not "hooking" (because you don’t actually use a hook), this popular form of fiber art is considered by many textile historians to be a step in the evolution of rug hooking.

 

Punching with a Craftsman Needle
 
How Does the Punch Needle Work??
 
Using either yarn or strips of cloth, you work with the punch tool from the back side of the pattern. The Monk’s cloth backing is tightly stretched on to a frame. Every time you punch the needle down through the backing, it makes a long thread on the right side of the rug. Then, as you lift the needle, it automatically makes it into a loop. These loops pack together to create a rug so solid that chewing dogs and clawing cats are its only enemy. As long as you use the tool correctly, it will automatically make all the loops the same length.
 
Sometimes referred to as "speed hooking", this method of rug hooking is loved for its ease and speed. One student described of as "instant gratification with wool."

 

How Does Proddy Rug Making Work??

Proddy rugs are made, as the name implies, by prodding or poking strips of fabric through burlap or linen from the back side.  Rag rugs made this way have many names; clippies, proddies, stobbies,  pricked, and in Scotland they are called clootie mats.  They were often made for more utilitarian use such as by the backdoor; their pile hiding dirt well.

Proddy Rug hooking

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