Grammy's Hooked Rugs

My Grammy Thurston, my mother's mother, enjoyed making hooked rugs. She was well known here in Maine for her talent and skill with hooking rugs. The rug pictured here now hangs above the mantle in our living room, never having been on the floor to be walked on as it was precious to my mother, and now just as precious to me.

Mammy Thurston died when I was eight years old, and I can still remember watching her sitting at her rug frame patiently adding narrow hand cut strips of dyed wool loop by loop until the design she had planned was created.

She used a backing of burlap, to which she drew a design, perhaps using a pattern. She carefully chose the wool fabrics in the colors she wanted. Sometimes she used tweeds or patterned fabrics, such as you see surrounding the floral centerpiece in the rug shown here. If she did not have the right colors she dyed light wool squares in a pot on the wood stove. I believe that the dyes she used were Cushing's Dyes, which come in little paper envelopes. I suspect she had to mix them sometimes in order to get all the shades she wanted for her pattern.

The wood stove was used to heat the kitchen, and my grandfather sat in his rocking chair at the end of the stove with his feet propped up after supper. When Grammy T was dyeing wool she dissolved the powdered dye in a small cup used only for dyeing wool, added some vinegar, and added water from the tea kettle. She then decided how intense the color should be, often dying two or three shades of the same color. This was done by putting two or three pots on the stove with water enough to cover the wool squares and then adding a teaspoon or so to one, a Tablespoon to another, and even more to the third. She added the fabric and let it simmer for a half hour or so until all the color was absorbed into the wool and only the clear water remained in the pot. Then she would let it cool, rinse it, and hand it to dry.

Then she cut the wool squares into narrow strips in three piles and proceeded to work the design in her rug. Sometimes she did not have enough of a particular color, and would dye more, which may have been yet a different shade, but in the finished rug she worked all the colors in so that the end result looked as if it were planned that way.

I have to admit, I do not remember all these details of dyeing and hooking from watching her at such a young age but I do remember her standing at the wood stove stirring the dye pots, and sitting at her rug frame hooking. I have learned much about dyeing and use Cushing's Dyes(still manufactured here in Maine)and a little about hooking rugs over the past 10 years. I believe her example as an artist has influenced me to enjoy dyeing wool yarn and create designs using wool. These activities feed my soul and energize me. I am very grateful for these memories of my Grammy.