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American
Artisan,
1
Hooking with
Heart
Susan Quicksall is doing her
part to keep the primitive craft of rug
hooking alive.
Carrying on a handiwork tradition that almost
died out with her grandmothers, Quicksall had to
learn the skill from books because she couldn’t find
anyone around to show her how to turn bags of rags
into beautiful, handmade floor coverings. Quicksall
now teaches aig hooking to eager students in her
home in Oglesby, Texas (pop. 457).
"I wanted to get more people involved to grow
my own hooking group,” says Quicksall, 60, who
runs a home-based needlepoint and pattern design
business called Holly Hill Designs. ' People like it
because you can use the things you have, and because
of the creativity. You can do it relatively fast, and have
something you can use.”
Her students have made everything from rugs to
purses to elegant name badges using the traditional
craft, which involves using a metal hook to pull pieces
of fabric—traditionally wool—through the weave of
a linen backing, creating a pattern on the front.
Rug hooking
“tells my story ”
Quicksall says.
by BARBARA
ELMORE
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Susan Quicksall’s “Rabbitt Hill” rug, depicting her home in Oglesby, Texas, took her some 500 hours to make.
Although the designs can be quite ornate, hooked
rugs originally were made strictly to use as soft cov
erings for cold, bare floors. The craft all but disap
peared when wall-to-wall carpet gained favor and as
more women began working outside the home.
"It started when people didn't have any
thing,” says Quicksall, noting that some of the
earliest practitioners were sailors who used bent
nails to pull strips of fabric through burlap to
pass time at sea. The more Quicksall learned
about the old craft, the more she marveled at the
resourcefulness of early rug hookers.
‘They had to use what they had for home
decor,” she says. “They really didn't have any
thing to beautify their home.” For rug-hooking
materials, "they used flour sacks, potato sacks
and old clothing. They also used natural things
they had in the garden to dye with, things they
didn't have to go out and purchase.”
Rug hooking is different today, with refined,
easy-to-follow designs and sophisticated tools.
Quicksall supplies her students with a kit, which
includes packets of wool strips, a hook and a pat
tern —drawn on Belgian linen, which resembles
burlap—depicting a cottage and garden.
Her informal classes, held until 2005 at McLen
nan Community College in Waco, Texas, attracted
schoolteachers, business owners and retirees. Now she
teaches in her home, at workshops or during monthly
meetings of Oglesby's newly formed Bluebonnet
Rug Hookers guild. The 20-member group meets
monthly to gab, hook and plan projects.
Interest in rug hooking is surging nation
wide, says Carrie Martin, 49, an enthusiast in
Covington, La., who represents regional chapters
of the Association of Traditional Hooking Artists
in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma
and Texas. Her Wool Rich, Cash Poor guild will
host the national ATHA Biennial Sept. 12-15 in
New Orleans.
"The last time we hosted it was 1995," she
says. At that time in our region, we had 150
members. Now we have close to 400.”
Martin, 49, attributes the rebirth to a trend
toward more informal decor and renewed interest in
Many of Quicksall’s rugs feature detailed pictures.
crafting. Plus, hooking projects—especially smaller
ones —are portable. "It's easy for women to take with
them,” she says.
Storytelling through rugs makes Quicksall’s
designs unusual. Many patterns feature flowers
or an animal.
"Hers are usually pictorials," says Lisa McMul
len, assistant editor for Rug Hooking magazine in
LeMoyne, Pa. One design. Rabbit Hill, shows
Quicksall s rural home of the same name as well as rab
bits, deer and a dog and cat peering from the flowerbed.
(Continued on page 15)
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