One Hundred Dollars a Month

Last year I rekindled my love for rug hooking and as a result of posting pictures of the primitive style rugs I have been making, a few of you have asked for a tutorial on the subject. But the thing is, rug hooking is a little complicated. Well, actually it’s not, rug hooking is pretty easy once you get the hang of it, but finding the supplies, the inspiration, and all the little tips and tricks, that’s the hard part for a newbie.

So I’ve decided to break down the ins and outs of rug hooking a bit and do 3 or 4 posts over the next few weeks. This week I am going to focus on the basics. Mainly where to find the supplies you’ll need to get started and once you have those supplies, how to draw out your patterns.

Rug hooking is sort of a unique hobby in that most of what you need to get started, cannot be found in your local craft store. {I LOVE THAT!!!} You want to know why? Because it ‘s one of those hobbies like woodworking, or leather-craft that is not for the faint of heart. Rug hooking is one of those hobbies you have to invest a lot of time into if you want good results. It takes time to find your groove, learn from your mistakes, and to realize the absolute beauty of a finished piece is it’s uniqueness and imperfection.

Oh, and it’s expensive too.

Have I scared you off yet? 😉

Okay, let’s get started. 

I prefer to use ivory linen backing for my hooked rugs. Some people use monk’s cloth because it costs less, but I prefer to use linen because it is nice and sturdy and doesn’t stretch. When I was first starting out I tried using burlap {it’s crap, and it breaks, don’t try it} and then monk’s cloth because it was cheap{er}. I quickly learned starting with a quality product made all the difference and it was worth every penny.

Rug Hooking Patterns.

You can  find inspiration from the several rug hooking books available for sale online or through your local library. In recent years I’ve had good luck finding patterns on Etsy on occasionally in quilt shops.  As I’ve gotten older and narrow in on a certain style I’ve started to create patterns of my own and offer them on Etsy for sale through my online Etsy store.

Drawing Rug Hooking Patterns

A lot of the time I’ll see a design online I like, but that I want to adapt to suit my taste. Buying the pattern doesn’t make sense because I’ll only be incorporating a few of the original elements into my rug design. So when that happens, I draw the pattern freehand or use things from around the house {like bottles and cookie cutters} for the shapes I need.

When I buy paper patterns I will typically enlarge the pattern to the size I need then copy it onto a piece of Tru-Grid interfacing before then transferring the pattern to my rug hooking linen.

Buying Ready Made Kits

If this all seems like too much work, although buying a kit is probably the most expensive way to get started, if you are only wanting to hook one rug, it may be the cheapest in the long run because you won’t have to invest in things like books, linen, wool and dyes.

That being said, I personally LOVE hand dying my own wool. It’s cheaper {about $3-20 a yard vs $45 – $60 a yard} and you get to create the colors you really want instead of having to buy what someone else is selling.

Size Matters

Before I started blogging full time, I sold my primitive hooked rugs on Ebay. Back then I could whip out 2 mini hooked rugs a day {5″ by 8″} and maybe one or two larger ones a month. It was a nice side income and I enjoyed staying up late hooking rugs at night and watching movies by myself when the kids were younger. In all that time, I NEVER made a rug for myself. Although I LOVED the creative process, the rugs never really fit with the Pottery Barn type look of the inside of my home.

In the olden days people would make rugs out of necessity {to use or to sell}, not for pleasure. And it was only last year that I finally made a rug for myself {the one in the top photo}. Finally, after all these years of living/breathing in high maintenance suburbia, my dream home on the East Coast is in sight. As a result of that, I’ve started making larger rug. Rugs I plan to use at my front and back doors, in the kitchen and in the bedrooms. These days I am selling my own patterns in my online Etsy shop.

I’m getting old, and I’m finally realizing that it’s okay to make something {and keep} it for myself. And that anyone can order something from Pottery Barn, but not everyone is going to invest 200 hours into making a one of a kind rug.

Use a Serger to Prevent the Ends of Your Rug Hooking Fabric from Unraveling.

Before I had my serger, I ran over the ends of my rug hooking fabric with the zig zag stitch on my sewing machine to prevent the ends of the fabric from unraveling while I worked on my rugs.

Rug Hooking Frames

I’m fairly certain if you were to take a poll of rug hookers, 95% of them use a rug hooking frame. After 10+ years of rug hooking without a frame, last summer I bought a frame and quickly decided using a frame just wasn’t for me. I was just learning to rug hook, I would want to learn how to use one. But old habits die hard, LOL and I just can’t get into it.

The basic idea behind using a rug hooking frame is that the grips {or teeth} hold your fabric in place while you hook. 

Rug Hooking Tool

When I first started rug hooking, I learned how to using a Cushing Hook. They sell for around $10. You can spend upwards of $50 for a handmade one, but even after all these years, I’m still using the basic one.

Where to Buy Wool

While I do sell patterns and and dyed wool in my Etsy shop from time to time, you can also google “Rug Hooking Wool” to find a boatload of sites selling both regular, and hand dyed wool.

But I have a favorite. 🙂

For the last 10 years or so I’ve been ordering my wool from Rebecca Erb’s Wool Studio. She offers such an amazing assortment of colors and textures {the selection is always changing} that it has become my one shop for buying wool.

New customers can order a 30 swatch New Customer Mailer for $5.00. If you become an active customer by ordering 2 yards {or $42.00}, you will be added to her quarterly swatch mailing list.

The Dorr Mill Store  is also a great source for solid wool they are located in New Hampshire {but you can buy online} and their oatmeal wool is one of my favorites}.You can also read about  my trip to the Dorr Mill store to get a feel what the place is like HERE.

Hand Dyed Wool 

I LOVE hand dying wool. And it deserves a post of its own so I will save that tutorial for next time.

Cushing’s Perfection Dyes

You’ll need these to dye your own wool. They cost around $2.85 each and it typically takes tiny amounts of several different colors to create the warm, primitive colors I like to use in my rugs. By themselves, most of the colors are too bright for dying in my opinion.

Mini Stainless Steel Measuring Spoons Set I use the set above instead of shelling out big bucks for fancy dye spoons.

Okay, so that’s it for this week. I hope I have not overwhelmed you with too much information.

Next week, I will post a tutorial on how to dye wool and after that, I’ll show you how to use everything mentioned above to hook your own rug.

~Mavis

Find More Rug Hooking Posts HERE.