2016
Erin_Deanne
Director at Large Erin McKenna from New Brunswick presented the 2016 Canadian Rug Hooking Artist of the Year plaque to recipient Deanne Fitzpatrick at Deanne's store in Amherst, NS.
Erin_Margot
Director at Large Erin McKenna with Museum volunteer Margot Janes. Margot finished her war time Ganong box rug for Ganong Chocolate Box Project and is presenting her rug to project organizer Erin McKenna.
Visitors to the Museum in August/September 2016:
Susan Sutherland & Suzanne Conrod
Susan Sutherland, Baden, ON (right), visited the museum in September and donated this antique rug. It is a unique Canadian rug that she had purchased from Shirley Lyons and is at least 100 years old. Susan is a long time rug hooker and rug hooking teacher. She loves the history of rug hooking and is thrilled that it has and is evolving into an art form and that we have the Museum to preserve the history of this Canadian craft.
Below: Brigitte Webb from Scotland was here visiting family and attended the Little Town Workshop at the Hooked Rug Museum of North America. Her rugs where recently featured in the book "Story Rugs and their Storytellers" on pages 40-41 by author Paulette Hackman.
Brigitte Webb
Mora Ballantyne
Mora Ballantyne from Sydney, NS dropped in for a visit on August 31st. Mora is a member of the Rug Hooking Guild of NS and she started this project at rug school in 2015 in a Mary Grant workshop. She is doing a Waldboro style interpretation of an antique Rittermere pattern and her sculpting is beautiful. All the fruits are done in eight values. It is a stunning piece!
Visitors to the Museum in July 2016:
Today (July 9th) four ladies from Dartmouth arrived at the museum with a beautiful Grenfell hooked rug. They were the MacNeil sisters, Pam, Janet and Karen, and their sister-in-law Debbie Fraser. The rug was gifted to their mother, Alice MacNeil (Power), 75 years ago by a merchant mariner. Their mother was a young woman at the time who lived in Halifax and worked at Moirs. The merchant mariner often visited a woman and her family who resided in the same building as Ms. Power. Ms. Power did not know the gentleman and it is unknown why he gave her the rug. She never saw him again. The beauty of this piece is that the dogs are covered with seal skin.
Grenfell
Visitors to the Museum in June 2016:
Matt Whitman & Suzanne Conrod
HRM Deputy Major Matt Whitman and Founding Director Suzanne Conrod
Deputy Mayor Matt Whitman dropped in for a visit at our first hook-in of the season. Our 60+ participants were enjoying a noise free atmosphere; thanks to a Halifax Community Grant we were able to install new acoustically lined ductwork to our heat pump. We would also like to thank our Deputy Major for his assistance in providing us with audio visual equipment which is a great aid to our workshop teachers helping them to perform in a more professional manner during their workshops, to be understood by all students and to be able to provide audio visual instructions. The wireless microphones enable everyone to hear us during guided tours. The Board of Directors of the Museum and our volunteers are extremely grateful for all the help that HRM has provided to us since our opening.
Suzanne & DeanneRug Hooking Artist of the Year Deanne Fitzpatrick visited the museum during the June 18th hook-in and held a book-signing for her new book "Simply Modern". She is shown here with Founding Director of HRMNA Suzanne Conrod.
Sherry , Jeanette & Suzanne
Jeanette Bomberger from Mount Joy, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania stopped in for a visit as well. Shown here with Director Sherry Chandler and Founding Director Suzanne Conrod. They have several mutual rug hooking friends in the US.
Visitors to the Museum in May 2016:
RugSchoolLadies
A few of the women from the US who are attending the Rug Hooking Guild of NS hooking school in Halifax came out to visit the museum on our first day of the season.
Joyce Dodson, MA; Donna Stone, TX; Sandra Kellar, TX; Margaret Bedle, TX; and Karen Maddox, TX
HRMNA volunteers took it to the streets in the Annual Hubbards Street Parade on August 9, 2014.
Left: Decorating the vehicle
Centre: the side and back view
Right: Gertrude is on board and ready to roll
Left: Directors Linda Crowell, Catherine Clute, volunteer Linda Stewart and Director Susan Lord.
Right: the wearing of the rugs, a new HRMNA tradition
Much thanks to all those who participated and to Dave Stewart for lending his vehicle and driving Gertrude through the parade.
Other
News: HRMNA Director/Treasurer Sherry Chandler attended the Northern McGown Teachers Workshop at Nichols College, Dudley, Mass. in July and while there presented Sibyl Osicka with her Rug Hooking Artist of the Year plaque from HRMNA.
Sherry also became President of the Workshop for the next two years. Congratulations Sherry!!
Raffle Draw Winners - 2013
1st prize - Judy Schnare - Blandford, NS - Framed Hooked Rug - Schooner 
2nd prize – Doris Baardsen - Kingston, NB - Hooked Rug with Sailboats
3rd prize – Lynda Fenton – Amherst, NS - Braided Rug
4th prize – Allison Nolting – Halifax, NS - Suttle Rug
5th prize – Bev Monahan – Sussex, NB - Cheticamp Hooked Mask
6th prize - Erin mcKenna - Apohaqui, NB - Hooked Trivet
7th prize - Dudley Grove – USA - Book (Rescued from Oblivion)
8th prize - Janet Grant – Toronto – Book –(Rescued from Oblivion)
Congratulations to all the winners!
Director At Large Phyllis Lindblade is visiting from Hamburg, Michigan and is spending time at 'Old
Salt' in Blandford, along with Pam Paine from Ohio, and Lucy Richard from Moncton. All of them, plus Founder Suzanne Conrod, are part of the on-line hooking group called Yahookers. Phyllis Lindblade is the web master behind this large group which allows hookers from all across the continent to keep in touch with each other. Pictured here, from left, are Pam Paine who is also a member of the Western Reserve Guild chapter of ATHA, Phyllis, Suzanne and Lucy who has the Facebook group called the Wooly Mason Jar.
During Phyllis's stay she was presented with a plaque thanking the Yahoo Hookers for their tremendous support in helping the museum procure fold-up chairs and tables for the museum auditorium. Three Cheers for the Hooked Rug Museum became "3 Chairs" as lots of Yahoo Hookers donated money to help purchase the chairs. She also met up with fellow Yahoo Hooker Edith Whynot (from Bridgewater) who passed along to the museum directors that the chairs were on sale at Canadian Tire and after a flurry of phone calls to various Canadian Tire stores we were able to purchase 140 chairs for the museum. Shown to the left is Suzanne Conrod presenting the plaque to Phyllis Lindblade.
Shown at right are Edith Whynot, Suzanne and Phyllis.
Happy a
nd Steve DiFranza, North Reading, MA dropped in to the museum this week to present this beautiful "Alice in Wonderland" rug to Hugh and Suzanne Conrod. The rug was originally designed for their oldest daughter in 1963 and was the beginning of their business venture in rug design.
They avoid flowers in the traditional arrangements since these are readily avaiilable and instead concentrate on expanding the animal field, offering a magnificant Noah's Ark and Peace in the Garden. Steve does the actual designing and Happy is the "design interpreter" and also teaches rug hooking. Happy hooked this rug for the museum.
To learn more about the DiFranza's you can visit their website .
TREASURE CHESTS
The four uniquely designed chests contain the rug hook collection of Sue Waddington, each drawer with specific unique items.
When rug hooker-collector and competent researcher Sue Waddington and her husband Jim drove 1,200 miles from Ontario to deliver her rug hook collection to the Hooked Rug Museum this month it marked not only another major advancement for the Museum collections but the culmination of some 40 years of careful acquisition. documentation and study by an important long time supporter of the Museum project.
Consider 554 individual rug hooks, each with variations, catalogued by type, cost of acquisition, and in some instances donors and/or source, along with detailed analysis, each professionally marked for identification and preservation. Such could only be a labor of love because such effort in accumulation and documentation of such a collection is an unparalleled feat and encompasses thousands of hours of labor.
It is almost beyond comprehension to realize that so many variations of rug hooks exist - many are hand made and very unusual. They ranged from a silver hook converted from an old fork , to a number acquired some from commercial sources, antique dealers and various locations and included a corn cob hook (handle), a thimble topped one and others made of iron, aluminum, pewter, steel, and copper as well as carved forms of wood. Add to these the bone handles, cloth, leather and thread wrapped, hand painted , machine tooled, half scissored.
Sue Waddington's four treasure chests and contents wiil be accessioned and maintained as the collection was presented.
Shirley Hiltz, New Ross, N.S. Canada
CANADIAN RUG HOOKER OF THE YEAR 2013
Nestled in the woodlands along the Forties road in the New Ross area of Lunenburg County HRMNA has discovered an unsung Rembrandt of rug hooking, quietly surrounded by a treasure trove of magnificent hooked tapestries that could grace the most elegant castle or palace.
Mrs Melbourne (Shirley) Hiltz has been described as Nova ScotiaŹ¼s greatest present day fine-art rug hooker and few would challenge that claim. Her fame however is unsung and she typifies the modesty of many rural Nova Scotia rug hookers in not seeking out the glory she so obviously deserves. She is a Founding Director of the Rug Hooking Guild of Nova Scotia.
She not only hooks with a delicate velvet like finely-cut fabric but she painstakingly seeks out and hand dyes the exacting colors with which she creates superbly graceful scenes in wool. Her modesty belies the excellence of work which in oil painting would be rated at the “grand master” level. A visit to her gallery is truly a visit to rug hooking heaven.
Shirley comes by her love of rug hooking from a long ago heritage. Her mother first introduced her to the craft of utilitarian mat making passed down from generation to generation of Nova Scotian “mat” and “rug” makers over some two centuries. Her personal development in later years as a teacher at the New Ross Resource centre is now reflected in the development of many skilled new rug hookers in that rural area. A collection of her work will reside with the Museum's permanent collection.
Shirley Hiltz was a participant in the New Horizon's (Government of Canada) program called “At Grandmother's Knee" and her replication of a heritage design, salvaged from the remnants of the 1892 John E. Garrett rug pattern factory in New Glasgow, was one of the top award winners in that exhibit. It is not geometric or floral scenes, however, that fires up the talent and urge in Shirley's heart to hook master-pieces, it is the hooking of scenes containing birds that is her first love and her amazing talent overflows in these particular works of art. They hang on every wall, and in almost every corner of her home.
Michele Micarelli , New Haven, Ct. USA
UNITED STATES RUG HOOKER OF THE YEAR 2013
Michele Micarelli is a rug hooking artist whose main objective is to unleash her creativity and aid others in their search. The classes she teaches are full of storytelling, imagination exercises, and laughter. She has been a rug hooker since 1991 and prefers using 4 and 5 cut wool and linen for lots of detail. She is a certified McGown teacher.
She started rug hooking because of her childhood memories of the rugs her Father hooked while recovering from lung surgery. Her other loves are her family, the making of Sailor's Valentines (seashell art), beading, doll making, collecting, steampunk art, and gardening.
She is proud to have served on the A.T.H.A. Region 1 board of directors for ten years. She is past President of the Northern McGown Teacher's Workshop. She served as judge for 15 years of Craft's Adventure in New England and is proud to have had her rugs appear in several editions of The Celebration of Rug Hooking and has also been a judge there in the past. Her rugs appear in books by Linda Coughlin, Jessie Turbayne, Mary Sheppherd Burton and Amy Oxford. She will soon be in a new book by Rae Harrell “Barely Hooked”. She has been in several issues of Rug Hooking Magazine with articles that featured her dying skills and rugs made with imagination.
She has taught workshops at Asilomar, Shelburne Museum, The Highlands Rug School, The ATHA Region 1 Rug School, The Burlington Ontario Rug School, Cambria, Caraway, The Star of Texas, Little River School, The Green Mountain Guild School and The Buckeye group, The Rug Hooking School of Nova Scotia, among many others. In addition Michele teaches at her studio and frequently hosts “big fun dye days”.
Shown here is her handsome "Jack of Clubs" which is even more stunning up close!