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With Cats in the Paint Pot, I was on a mission to use only worms from my stash—all cuts, colors, and textures. The only wool I cut was for the red, dark blue, and yellow #3 lines (for consistency, although they were all cut from various small scraps) and the dark blue #8 for the outer line and picots. The background was determined by a large, tangled wad of creamy beige/taupe wools of various cuts and colors that I was given years ago. I thought there would be plenty, but I began to run low, and a friendly fellow hooker kindly donated a similar stash of her own. In that way, this rug has been the ultimate recycling project.
The crazy, fractured outer border of many colors is my favorite part of this rug. It was fun to hook, and I love the way it looks!
This piece was free of challenges, but I did get a little tired of hooking circles toward the end. After I finished hooking, I rolled the backing to the front and whipped the edges with wool yarn. This rug taught me that it’s nearly always possible to make something out of nothing.
Cats in the Paint Pot received a viewers’ choice award at the May 2025 Hooked in the Mountains exhibition held by the Green Mountain Rug Hooking Guild at the Sugarbush Resort in Warren, Vermont.
From the Judges:
Joyful colors thoughtfully placed to create contrast. The multicolored border adds depth and frames the piece delightfully. Lots of repetition, creating rhythm in the central aspect of the rug and all the way out to the border. A vibrant, playful piece, richly detailed.
SOUTH HADLEY, MASSACHUSETTS
Kathleen is recently retired from a successful career in the arts, which included stints at the MFA (Boston) and Christie’s International Auction House before she established her own fine-art appraisal and consulting firm. For 25 years, she was an appraiser of paintings on PBS’s Antiques Roadshow. A rug hooker since 2002, she hooks with several groups in New England and has had various rugs included in Celebration. She lives in South Hadley, Massachusetts, with her husband, Kim, and beloved dog, Fenway, where she cooks and gardens, reads, works as a hospice volunteer, and hooks incessantly.