Louisa Creed

Rug hooking in England

Hi all!

I’ve been busy expanding my rug hooking knowledge. In the last year I’ve traveled to England twice on rug hooking expeditions! I found that rug hooking is alive-and-well there and they hook exactly like we do here in the USA but with a much thicker cut. 

On my trip in May 2003 I was fortunate enough to find a rug hooking workshop on the first weekend that I was in England. It was being put on by the Ebor Ruggers of York and featured Louisa & Lewis Creed, and Ben Hall. The Creeds are traditional hookers who hand cut all their recycled materials. In fact, most rug hookers in England hand cut the fabrics!  Ben Hall does both traditional hooking and proddy. His work can be seen in several books now in print.

I pre-enrolled in the Creeds class for traditional hooking by way of my trusty computer and the internet.  I arrived at 10 AM on the dot for the start of class to find everyone else there and starting on their projects. Boy, these English hookers were excited about this class!! In England the rug hookers use everything that is available to hook with; not just wool fabric as we do here in the USA..  The table that we were working around was strewn with wonderful colors of …sweaters, knit tops, and knit pants! (See upper right picture)  In fact, there was NO wool woven fabric to be seen; and, NO cutter in site either. This was not the kind of rug hooking class that I was used to.  I was intrigued to say the least!

First, we all worked on a small sampler-8" x 8".  Louisa told us to experiment with all the fabrics that were on the table, using our scissors to cut strips from ½" up to 1" wide. (see second picture on the right)  The sweater material sometimes stretched to a thinner width as it was used …in fact all of the knit fabrics did this. The textures were incredible!!! Imagine hooking with velour, mohair sweaters, silk and cotton knits. We even demolished a beautiful Fair Isle vest; it worked up wonderfully. This was a very freeing experience. I could see all kinds of possibilities and could hardly wait to get home to my local thrift shop.

Ben Hall was in the next room with his students working on proddy rugs. I had just recently taken a short 1 hour introduction to proddy from Joan Reckwerdt so I understood the basics of this technique.  But, he was using old blue jeans!!!  Wow, again, something new to try when I got home.

Mixture of fabrics to hook with.

Ben Hall

A grouping of like colors to work with.

The finished edge; hooked through the turned edge.

Texture created by different fabrics.

More textures.