Hooked rugs by Emily Carr

Emily Carr (1871-1942) was a Canadian artist who studied in England for a while. She painted on the west coast of Canada - landscape, especially the forests, and Indian villages and totems - and her individual style was rediscovered in the late 1920s. She called herself "the little old lady on the edge of nowhere".

After a not very successful exhibition in Victoria in 1913 she needed to earn extra money, so she raised and sold sheep dogs, hooked rugs, and created pottery based on First Nations designs.

"Eagle Rug" is available as a kit

I've written more about Carr here, and Vancouver Art Gallery's website has good biographical information. There will be an exhibition of her paintings at Dulwich Picture Gallery, south London, later this year. 

An arty hooked rug

Designed by Ben Nicholson, "Slinky" was hooked by Joan Bravington about 1933. It measures 45" (115cm) square.

In a letter dated Sept 1 that "refers to the wool rug 'slinky ' that Joan Bravington made from a design by Ben Nicholson circa 1933 (lot 167 [of a sale at Christies in 2001] )", Nicholson writes -

"Dear Joan/Thanks for the blue/pattern. Don't know without seeing/the design & all the colours together I/can not tell. I am not coming back/for another week - why not take/them altogether along to Barbara/& shown them to her? if y ou're in any /hurry or if not I shall be back/about the 11th -/About the cost of material - I've/written EQ to ask if she'd work out/the length of time it's taken to work/her .. against the price to be asked/& cost of the materials./I've got several rugs being/made I don't want to fork out a pound/on materials for each. But we must/work it out so that it's fair to/the worker & the designer. I think/if I have to find a pound on each rug/it would pay me much better to/sell the designs outright(that's what/I've done in one case). It means I get/4 pounds or 5 pounds down instead of paying/out a pound & getting 5 pounds or 6 pounds eventually -/But EQ having worked her rug ought/to be able to tell fairly exactly what/proportion the weaver needs of her time./This place has a rather/dinky little port./I hope the new house is/getting on/from Ben"

"Ben and Slinky" by Winifred Nicholson, 1927 (via)

Slinky was the name of the dog Ben and Winifred Nicholson had in Cumbria. The rug is signed on the reverse - and sold in 2001 for £1,410. It was exhibited in a show at Pallant House, Chichester, in 1994 entitled "Artists and rugmakers" ... wonder what else was in that show?

The rug is part of the "Artist Textiles: Picasso to Warhol" show at the Fashion and Textile Museum, Bermondsey, London, till 17 May. The show includes about 200 pieces, and this is the only hooked one. I was surprised to see anything hooked at all.

"Log cabin" rugs

Part of a selection of "American Log Cabin Hooked Rugs, early 20th century" at http://whereinthewot.blogspot.co.uk/2010/07/american-log-cabin-hooked-rugs-early.html

The Brown's tool

The "Brown's tool" is also known as the Brown's rag rugger tool, or simply as the rag rugger tool (not to be confused with a hook or proddy...). In Yorkshire it's called a bodger.

Complete information on how to use the "Brown's tool" is on the Makings Handicrafts website - as well as basic technique, you learn a secret and get tips!

This family history web page has a photo of rag rug tools used in the 1940s/50s, one of which has the name Brown's and a patent number RD673864 and "made in England". That probably explains why the tool is known as the Brown's tool - Mr (or Ms) Brown invented and patented it.

The vintage tool has a different configuration of spring and lever; this one sold recently on ebay.

A wonderful resource

If you don't know it already, have a look at The Textile Blog thetextileblog.blogspot.com- it's full of interesting information on all sorts of textiles, including rugs, like this one by Joseph Maria Olbrich, c1900 - More about these rugs is here.

Twenty years ago

At the February meeting, this magazine was floating around - the Jan/Feb 1991 issue, with a nice article on the rag rug revival -

Names mentioned in the article (with linkss, if available):

Kathleen Knight and Iris Sutton made rag rugs in their childhood
Moyna Lynch

Jenni Stuart-Anderson

Lu Mason

Ann Davies (British Rag Rug Association)
Hermitage Rugs of Roxburghshire (Emma Tennant)

Ali Rhind

John Hinchcliffe (author of Rugs from Rags, 1977)

Julia Burrowes ("textural paintings")
Gerry Coup

Winifred Nicholson (the 1960s Cumbrian revival)

Audrey and Dennis Barker (1970s)

"The history of rag rugs is almost entirely oral."

Hooked in Labrador

Back in the days before digital cameras, Canada House in London had an exhibition of, or containing, hooked rugs from Newfoundland - they were gorgeous. And here's a book with photos and information! I haven't had time to read it yet and will bring it along to the February meeting.
The book contains old photos of the landscape and activities that the designs are based on.
"Fish Flake" is quite well known - the designer is Rhoda Dawson, who went out to Labrador in the 1930s to work with the Grenfell Mission, which provided medical care. The rugs were fundraisers, and society ladies "down south" in the USA saved up their old silk stockings to donate as material for the rugs - Grenfell had married an American socialite, who got very involved in the enterprise.

The mats are still hooked today, in wool, to the traditional patterns - they are hooked in horizontal lines and use every hole in the "brin" (burlap/hessian).

History

The earliest forebears of hooked rugs were the floor mats made in Yorkshire, England during the early part of the 19th century. Workers in weaving mills were allowed to collect thrums, pieces of yarn that ran 9 inches (23cm) long. These by-products were useless to the mill, and the weavers took them home and pulled the thrums through a backing.

(More information - about development of the craft in North America - is here.)

This site (from which the photo of the weaving mill comes) continues:

Because yarn was expensive, and always saved for knitting sweaters, poor families without access to thrums usually made their hooked rugs using scraps of ordinary cloth. But no matter what fabric was used, the hooked rugs were more attractive than the common alternative at the time: inexpensive mats woven from coconut fiber, straw, or corn husks.

Photos of very old rugs are hard to come by - mostly they got used till they wore out!