The Purple Hat Rug Hooking Group
By Carole Bates

Hooked rugs have always been in my life, so to speak. My mother used to teach this old art form with a new twist when I was a teenager. Where rugs used to be made for convenience years ago, she taught how to make beautiful rugs just for the looks. Wonderful shaded flowers using all wool strips are cut with a special cutter. Changing the wheels on the cutters cuts different sized strips.

A year ago a friend who wanted to learn how to hook approached me and she had two other friends who also wanted to learn this fascinating art form.

So we met, and there begins our story.

I showed them what I knew and we went to a rug-hooking clinic that was held here in Musquodoboit, Nova Scotia Canada by another rug hooking group. We took in a dyeing course, so we could do our own dyeing of colours for our rugs. One of the girls has been able to go to different rug shops around the province and she has picked up lots of hints for us to copy. It really is an art form that hands on is the only way to learn. We learn by our mistakes just like any other craft.

I had heard on CBC radio, an interview with Joan Cripps about "The Purple Hat Ladies Tea Society," and was interested to learn more so I contacted her through the Internet. She answered and gave me such a great write-up about the ‘Purple Hats,’ I passed this along to my ‘hooking’ friends and we decided we would like to be called the ‘Purple Hat Rug Hooking Group’.

We even have a mascot. Her name is Piggily Wiggily Hooker. Piggily for short. Why Piggily Wiggily? Well as it happens, piggily wiggily, is a form of hooking. Instead of hooking in a straight line you just go around or up and down, whatever way you want.

One of the girls, Irene, bought us straw hats that she painted purple and we wear them going to and from our Monday night meetings.

Monday nights we like to tell a story or two or read about the latest Purple Hat Tea our Miramichi friends had, and hook our rugs of course.

Thanks to Joan for the inspiration!

We love our Purple Hats!!

Carole Bates of "The Purple Hat Rug Hooking Group" lives in the Musquodoboit Valley of N.S. One of her passions is rug hooking but she likes to try other crafts. She sews, knits and crochets. Now that the family is grown and gone, she has more time to try other things. Carole is very involved in the U.C.W. and also as her church organist.