Making Hooked Rugs

By Borgne M. Keith
Published on January 1, 1983
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Wrap a wool strip around you hook like this.
Wrap a wool strip around you hook like this.
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The equipment and materials you'll need to make hooked rugs include wool strips, a hand hook, scissors, and burlap. For intricate patters and hoop frame also helps.
The equipment and materials you'll need to make hooked rugs include wool strips, a hand hook, scissors, and burlap. For intricate patters and hoop frame also helps.
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Pull a loop up through the backing.
Pull a loop up through the backing.
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A completed rug. With practice you might be able to profit from your hobby.
A completed rug. With practice you might be able to profit from your hobby.

On a frosty morning, when you start to swing your dreading-to-touch-the-cold-floor feet out of your snug bed, wouldn’t it be nice to know there’s a cuddly hooked rug waiting for them? That floor covering can warm you inside, too, if it’s an “heirloom” that you made yourself!

And you can create a cozy treat for your toes, because hooked rugs require neither special needle-working ability nor a big budget. If you’ve got a rug-sized scrap of burlap to use as backing, some odds and ends of old wool clothing to recycle, a dollar or two to spend on the one necessary tool, and a few stay-at-home hours to spare, you can soon be a homestead rug hooker.

What’s more, if you become really good at this craft, you can use it to turn a profit. There’s quite a demand for fine handmade floor coverings, you see, and the price tags on quality hooked rugs can run from $100 to $1,000.

How to Get Hooking

There’re about as many techniques for hooking a rug as there are materials available to do it with. To narrow the field, a beginner might be wisest to learn hand-hooking first, using salvaged or inexpensive burlap and wool strips. This is by far the simplest and least costly method.

To get started, buy a hand hook (it’ll cost around $1.25) from a crafts supply store. Then scout out some nice scraps of wool fabric (you’ll need half a pound for each square foot of your rug), either in your own closets and basement or at a thrift shop or flea market. Wool is far superior to any other rugmaking material, simply because it wears so well. What’s more, it’s easily dyed … so you needn’t limit your color scheme to the shades you find. If you do plan to dye your raw material, though, you’ll want to buy or scrounge as much light-colored (preferably white or beige) fabric as you can.

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