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Prince Edward Island’s Historic Rug Hooking Connections to the New England States

21 Mar

 While I am not much of a traveller myself, I do know that this is a great tour for rug hookers of Prince Edward Island and the rest of the Maritimes.  People who went on last year’s tour tell me that they couldn’t believe how much rug hooking they saw in such a short time. http://www.targettours.ca/destination/72/New-England-Rug-Hookers-Tour

 This tour gves me the opportunity to talk about my interest in the rug hooking history of PEI.

Pastimes PEI gallery wall

My quest to fnd out more about the history of rug  hooking started a long time ago – when I started hooking n 1975.  If you are familiar with the history and culture of rug hooking, you will know that it seems to have ‘started’ in the Canadian Maritimes, Newfoundland and Labrador, eastern Quebec and the New England states. No one knows for sure because, like many things that women did in in the household, it did not make it into the history books. (That subject can be left for another wntery day.)  I can tell you that just as rug hooking culture runs deep here on the Island, so does it just south of the border, not far from here. 

 Much of the rich PEI rug hooking history has not been recorded.  Heather and I  interviewed just a few Island rug hookers way back in 1991 as part of an art class we were taking at University of Prince Edward Island. In 1999 we created a slide show about the people who hooked on PEI.  All of this was before technology – we used a plain old 1990s camera and took real ‘slides’ of the rugs and the women…. but at least we did that much way back then. I promise to keep you updated on our quest to gather up more Island rug hooking history.. if you are nterested.  We have presented our new version of the presentation to a couple of local rug hooking groups but it is still a work in progress.  The more people tell us about our history, the more we all will come to know and appreciate our past rug hookers.

Meanwhile, online, you can read Anne Nicholson’s detailed and very informative series of topics on the culture of PEI rug hooking with separate articles on some of  the people who hooked great rugs: http://www.gov.pe.ca/firsthand/index.php3?number=43723&lang=E

Jack and I have to get a move on today and finish a little rug for a new little beginner kit called 1-fish 2-fish using two new Dorr wool textures and plain Dorr blue – all while we watch the Canadian women’s curling team in the World Curling event:

Jack is supposed to be helping me hook the sample for the new beginners kit....

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Sheep Frolic is latest pattern to hook at Pastimes PEI

18 Sep

https://www.facebook.com/pastimespei

‘Little PEI Cottage’ Rughooking kit and the dust bath today

2 Sep
Also new at the shop..bette’s latest Island Scene, wool on Cotton Warp.                   

It’s always nice to put new things on the wall so the new Little PEI Cottage kit and the origional hooked piece fit nicely with Bette’s new work. She modelled it from a homestead she saw in orwell. prince Edward Island. it looks exactly like Orwell because, the houses are set back from the road on that drive to Eldon on the Trans Canada Highway, Route 1 on the way to the Wood Island’s ferry.

We have already sold a couple of the new little kits; we are always happy when people like them as much as we do. You can see that we are carrying a few select pieces of Brenda Watt’s Woodworking. the cutting boards and wine stoppers are very popular items as well as the acorn doorstoppers. .. easy to pack and bring back to friends as an unique souveneir of PEI.

Yesterday a really nice flower in the garden was damaged by some of the folks here; I’ll show you what I mean via this morning’s pictures in the garden:



The ‘people’ disturbing the flowers for their own pleasure..





and their friends joined in….



they are not that cute…..look at me, guys…

Cock of the Walk…



getting reaady for harvest…



first customer at Pastimes PEI today

14 Aug

 We get a variety of customers here at the shop: https://www.facebook.com/#!/pastimespei



buying anything??



Pastimes PEI rughooking wools -greens – Jack’s Picks

12 Jul



Jack’s Picks – greens



what would lupins be without green behind them?

It would be safe to say that today Jack and I could have picked any color of the rainbow in the wools in the shop today but we chose greens. that’s because Heather has just finished a pretty little sampler that could hang on the wall or be the front of a cushion. So it’s greens for today. Greens set the mood of your hooking… bright for a springy feeling or more to the orangy side for the fall. I’ve set out some to show you with the hooked piece in the background. It contains lots and lots of greens so don’t be afraid to dig out your scrap bag to invent your own kind of landscape…..or leaves or whatever needs to be green….As for the lupins I found down the road, what would blues and purples be with a gorgeous green background? Pretty dull. Colors need each other….. You’ll find lots of wools in our shop today as I have been filling up the ‘hit and miss’ baskets and all the other baskets of small treasures for rug hookers. We have restocked – I mean, Heather has hand drawn lots of our most popular summer patterns. We have photo cards of our hooked work here too. Cheers, Shirlee and Jack

My Friend’s Sunflower Hooked Rug from PEI

5 Jul

nice mat….did you do it yourself?
I have to be in every picture, you guys…
Cindy’s original Sunflower mat with some of our wool
I could have done that myself….

This morning bright and early my hooker friend and her son visited Jack and I. It was quite a job getting a picture of them with the mat as you can see. It is not finished as she came for more wool to finish it. Later on she’s coming back for more pieces from my rag bin. What we do not use does not go to waste, someone else can use it. That’s what they used to do in the past, when things were used not thrown out.

I have fresh new baskets of of rags that I sell for those who have to have just one more color. I also have a great selection of MacAusland’s PEI  http://www.macauslandswoollenmills.com/ wool yarn and Briggs and Little New Brunswick (http://www.briggsandlittle.com wool yarn in different plies for either knitting or hooking. We use this wool yarns for both hooking and for whipping around the edges of our mats. It’s an Island tradition to hook in both rags and yarn so we like to carry on with the traditional materials as much as possible.

It’s fun to learn to hook for yourself….

You may get to help us work on a mat if you drop by. There is usually a seat at the big mat frame. We have lots of new patterns that are hot-off-the-press too. Cheers, for today from Jack and Shirlee.

My Hummingbirds are Really Big

16 Jun
not you average hummer…

not your average baby…

Sweet Rocket in the back yard…

Our pets are not always like anyone else’s. The duck has two ducklings and one white chicken; the hummingbird feeder attracted some yellow birds this am. The dog is allowing mice in the porch but after they are in the trap dead, he goes after them. He’s supposed to be a terrier, a Jack Russell. I thought we would never see mice again but no, we still have to get out the old traps and do the job ourselves while Jack helps. He helps herd the ducks. In the wrong direction. He eats Gunter’s food from the cat dish even if I trick him and put his own food in there.

not your usual rooster, I guess…

I hooked this rooster in the winter and used a grey tweed wool yarn from MacAusland’s Woollen Mills on PEI for the background. The other wool is cut strips.