Raffle Draw Winners
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!