Give a Gift
Back in 1967, my boyfriend took me home to meet his family. They lived in a standard three-bedroom bungalow with a rec room in the basement. The rec room was domi-nated by a massive stone fireplace, the imposing creation of a gifted stonemason.
In front of this fireplace lay a hearth rug. It was the ug-liest rug I had ever seen. It was mostly faded orange, with a couple of roses and some other indeterminate motifs in the corners. It didn’t match the rest of the room’s décor, and it certainly didn’t do justice to the fine stone fireplace. His mom, Ruth, showed it to me with obvious pride. She may have told me the provenance, but I was too busy look-ing at the handsome hunk of young man who was her son to pay any attention to what she was saying.
Thirty years later, those in-laws were downsizing. Ruth asked me, in the reverent tone people use for serious, life-changing discussion, if I would like her hearth rug. I looked at the ugly rug, and at Ruth, a woman who had shown me nothing but kindness and love for the last
30 years, and said, with dignity, “I would be honored to have this rug.”
And so, the ugly rug came to live at our house. Lack-ing a stone fireplace, I put it in a corner, in a spare room, under a lamp, under a dresser—anywhere that it would not be noticed.
In 2011, I discovered rug hooking, and with new knowl-edge, I took another look at the ugly rug. It appeared to be hooked on some kind of burlap. Not surprising, as Ruth had lived on a farm. The faded motifs were roses, thistles, and shamrocks. Since my mother-in-law’s family had come from Belfast in the 1830s, and her husband’s family had come from Scotland in the same era, I thought this might be a rug representing the United Kingdom of England, Ireland, and Scotland. When I spread the loops apart, I realized it was originally made with quite pretty colors, not faded orange. The thistles were purple. The roses were red. The shamrocks were green. The loops were all cut open, but it wasn’t latch hooked. They appeared to be made with some kind of knit fabric rolled into tight bundles. There was nothing I could do to salvage the colors short of clip-ping the top quarter inch off the entire rug.
A damaged corner on the original rug.
The true colors of the rug were revealed when the loops were
pulled apart.
The back of the original rug.
The back of the original rug.
The replica pattern on Red Dot.
By this time, my mother-in-law could no longer give me the provenance. She came from a family of six children: four girls and two boys. I had seen Ruth knitting, quilting, sewing, and doing needlepoint, so I surmised that all the girls in the family would have been taught those domestic skills in the 1930s. If Ruth learned those fabric arts from her mother, there might be more skills lurking in the family tree. Someone was a rug hooker. Maybe the love of hooking just hadn’t caught on with all the girls. But it was too late to ask, as they had all passed away, and their children claimed to know nothing about the rug.
Closer views of One Pretty Rug.
Closer views of One Pretty Rug.
Closer views of One Pretty Rug.
One Pretty Rug, 50″ x 31″, #7-cut new and recycled wool on linen. Adapted from an antique rug and hooked by Vicki
Cameron, Oxford Station, Ontario, 2013
I decided the best thing to do to save the heritage of this rug was to create a replica. I had only been rug hooking for a year, so my attempt was amateurish.
I began by laying the rug on a table and covering it with a layer of Red Dot. I could have traced one of the two ros-es and one of the thistles. I could have traced half the rug, as it was a mirror image—or a quarter of the rug. But no, I traced the entire thing, and it was a struggle, as the outlines of the motifs had faded into vagueness.
Once done, I copied the design onto a linen backing and set to work. Someone suggested I add leeks to represent Wales. I chose colors other than orange and worked on it for over a year. Afterward, I had a rug that looked quite nice. Since I didn’t have a stone fireplace, I placed it in the TV room, in front of the couch.
The original rug was then tucked under a filing cabi-net. I wondered if it had any value as a historical artifact. I contacted the Rug Hooking Museum of North America in Nova Scotia and had a lengthy email discussion about this rug. They were not interested in acquiring it. Next, I tried the Textile Museum of Canada in Toronto. They sent me packing immediately. As did the Museum of Civilization in Ottawa.
Now I have an ugly, faded, ancient rug that nobody wants, but that I cannot throw out. And I have a bright, cheery replica of the design. Someday, I will downsize and ask my daughter-in-law if she wants the old ugly rug. Somehow, I don’t think she will say she’d be honored. WLRH