Have fun with rugs and textiles!   Design a textile with the Victoria and Albert Museum ! (an online game) Click here.

1. Get a 10 to 12-inch (30 cm) dowel ** about 1 inch (2.5 cm) in diameter ***. A hard wood like maple is preferable to a soft wood such as pine.   2. Cut a 1/4-inch (0.5 cm) deep groove along the length of the dowel. (Have the lumber yard or a friend with a router do this for you.).   3.  Cut the wool into long strips, in whatever width you require. I use 3/4-inch (2 cm) or so. Some  people use slightly narrower strips.   4.  Starting with one end of the strip, just at the groove of the dowel, wind the long strip of wool around the dowel, taking care to overlap the edges of the wool as you coil it down the dowel. (It should look like a corkscrew.)	**  A dowel is a long, round piece of wood or other material.   *** A 1-inch diameter (2.5 cm) dowel will produce strips that are about 3-3/4-inches (9.5 cm) long. For thinner strips, use a smaller diameter dowel.
5.  After you have wrapped the wool strip, place one end of the opened scissors into the groove of the dowel and cut the fabric you have wound around the dowel. In this manner, you get several short strips of wool ready to be “proddied” in your rug.
	* Mary Jane Peabody is a member of the Green Mountain Rug Hooking Guild, in Vermont. She also belongs to the ATHA and the Hilltop Rug Hookers, New London, NH. She is a juried member of the League of NH Craftsmen and, when living in England, she is a member of the Lunesdale Rug Hookers.

Are you looking for a way to keep your wool strips in order? A helpful hint submitted by Maria Romero   Here’s an easy way, which I now do. I sort all the wool by colour, for the current project I’m working on, and place it in a tackle box. Its size is practical; it is not cumbersome and is light to carry. It is made of clear plastic and has moveable dividers that allow you to increase or reduce the number of compartments you need. Gone are those plastic baggies where everything gets tangled!

Maureen's prefered tips   Try hooking lettering with a plaid if your background is flat. Pick one of the colours, which picks up the background  colour or from another flat colour used elsewhere in the rug. Also when hooking letters, hook a row of background at the top and at the bottom of the letters to be hooked, then hook the letters snuggly up to the hooked background rows.   After hooking with your head bent forward for awhile, put your feet flat on the floor and let your head hang backwards for a few moments for relief of neck tension.   When whipping the corner of a rug, hold a small piece of matching wool over each corner piece and whip over that.  You won't need to use as thick a layer of yarn to cover.   Submitted by Maureen Rowe and taken from the ATHA "Hooking and Cooking once again…" book.  Copyright 2008, Morris Press Cookbooks.

Free Rug Hooking Patterns! Visit Blue Ribbon Rugs  to download this cute Christmas pattern made by Donna Hrkman, a talented artist who has contributed articles and projects to Rug Hooking Magazine. As she suggests in her Web site, you can bookmark the "Free Pattern Download" page because she plans to make a new pattern available every season.   Remember that all free patterns are available for personal use only. Commercial use is prohibited. Visit the Finished Rugs page.You can buy patterns for each of her designs as well. And don't miss Donna Hrkman's Congo Rug! http://www.blueribbonrugs.com/index.html

© Jen Tabangcura   Wonderful Drawing Tutorials!   If you're planning to create a portrait or you want to design a human character, take a look at Jen Tabangcura's  drawing  tutorial  at Anatomy plz!

Do you want to prolong the life of your rug? Click on the link to visit The Canadian Conservation Institut Web site and read How to care for carpets and rugs.

Teacher's tips by Lois Morris   If you are hooking a piece that you plan to hang, this is a good idea:  by having it mounted on a stretcher frame, you can attach  those little saw tooth hangers to the stretcher on the back and your piece will hang flush to the wall and not sag and ripple.  You can hook a border on your piece or you can have a frame mounted on the stretcher frame as with a painting.

You will need a plyer or a sharp.	Cut the strips.
On the right side of the rug consists in pulling, with a plyer, short strips of fabrics (about 6 cm long x 1.5 cm wide) through the canvas.	On the back side of the rug, the technique consists in pushing, with a sharp tool, the short strips of fabric through the canvas. The canvas must be stretched on the frame.
You can roll the strips to obtain curly and volumetric effects.

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Stained Glass. Denise Vandenbemden Click on the picture for a largest image. How to hook a stained glass piece by Denise Vandenbemden   Hooking stained glass is actually very easy. The best thing to do is to go to a stained glass supply store and have a good look at the different kinds of glass. Some is mottled, some is spotted and some looks hammered and the choice is endless. Explain your interest to the store keeper and ask if you can take a few pictures. I would suggest you spot-dye your wool. Outline the "glass pieces" on the lines of your pattern and fill in hooking straight or in diagonal or circles to achieve the  desired effect. The outline should be black if you are using strong colors, with light colors charcoal looks better. For a pattern you can use Ed Sibbet Jr.'s "Stained glass coloring books" from an art and craft store. The patterns may be used without special authorization.   Stained glass imitation hooked in 2006 with wool fabric on burlap in a # 4 cut. Pattern is an adapted design from the ''Art Nouveau Stained Glass Coloring book'' by Ed Sibbet Jr. The colors were achieved with spot deying on natural wool.

Do our members have any rug hooking tips that they would like to share? Please email them to us and we will include them in this page.