Recently Retired Lauren

Lauren lives in Ohio and worked for the city.  When it snowed she had to get to work ~ even thru the drifts and hip high snow ~ to handle calls from city folk wanting to know when their street would be plowed.  Oh there's more but it's her story so will leave you with that.

Needless to say I'm sure that gal is doing the 'happy dance' every time she sees a snow flake now.  Anyhoo, onto her rug hooking journey......

Lauren (Rugs and Pugs) likes to say she is a self-taught hooker but that’s not entirely true.  She said about 30 years she took a hooking class ~ and HATED every loop.  She recalls it as a 4 or 6 cut using a push-pin frame.  She finished an area perhaps 4” x 4”.  When the class was over she put all the supplies in a closet, never to pull another loop on it.

Fast forward to 2004 she stumbled upon primitive hooking.  In the meantime, she downsized and probably threw out all the supplies because she tore the attic apart looking for them but never did.   Lauren found a class to take from a wonderful primitive hooker.  Sadly, the class was cancelled; think she was the only one signed up.  

Then Lauren turned to eBay for supplies.  She purchased 8 cut worms since she had no cutter.  As most of us just starting out she had no idea what bad wool was.  And Lauren says, "but let me tell you, I spent a fortune buying bad wool.  I wasn’t hooking, just buying wool."

Lauren continues:  "When I finally got brave enough to start a little mat, I drew up a diamond mat and I chose THE UGLIEST colors, flat red, black and yellow.  I knew they were ugly, not sure why I chose them, but that didn’t stop me."

Above is Lauren's first effort which was hooked 2005 and measures 6 x 9 1/2.  She still has it displayed in her hooking room as reminder to how far she's come.  

Lauren  wrote, "Initially everything I hooked was small.  I mean really small.  In 2006 first time I hooked a mat which was about 12” x 12”, you’d think I’d hooked a room sized rug I was so proud."

This would be that 'room size rug Lauren spoke of.  It is definitely an accomplishment over her first.  Yet her first still looks better than my first.

Lauren said, "The first three years I hooked alone.  The only other hooker I knew was the teacher and you’d think the next time she had a class she would have contacted me but she did not.  I knew of one group that met but I hate to enter a room full of people I don’t know, so it took me a long time to finally put on my big girl panties and go.  Too bad it took me so long to be brave.  I was made to feel so welcome and they are friends to this day.

Lauren has come a long way since then and the hooking never stops; well, maybe a pause on occasion.

Above is a collage of hooked items she has hooked, bottom left is a chicken on a spring from a class with Annette Shaffer.  The chicken design above that is offered by Maria Barton.  Top right chicken pattern is named Henny Penny and is a design by Woolley Fox (I also hooked that pattern, it was fun and quick). Below that is Cat and Mouse, a design by Betsy Reed.  I have that pattern too and still haven't hooked it ~ one day when something is needed between rugs I'll do mine.

Now we're talking ROOM SIZE rug here for Lauren now.  This is a bit bigger than her 12 x 12 she once thought was huge.  It is called 1885 Horses, it is an antique adaptation and copyright free and is also offered by Woolley Fox.  It comes in two sizes and bet money that Lauren hooked the small one which measures 16 x 47.

Would like to thank Lauren and all others who have kindly volunteered to share their journey of hooking rugs.

Happy Saturday even tho the temperatures are frigid.

Saundra