Demonstrating Rug Hooking

Four of our group of rug hookers spent the day in Thermopolis Wyoming at the Big Horn Basin Folk Festival / Gift of the Waters Pageant Days on Saturday. Sue Blakely from the Wyoming Arts Council asked us to demonstrate rug hooking. They had our canopy, tables, and banner all set up for us when we arrived.

 We were pleasantly surprised to meet Anne Hatch, above, who is the head of the Wyoming Arts Council. It is so nice to have such influential people showing an interest in rug hooking. Andrea Graham, Folklife Specialist from the University of Wyoming, was a real treat to meet. She has such a great interest in rug hooking. I hope that at some point she can spend a day hooking with us. I feel like we made a true friend when we met Andrea. She spends her time traveling to folk artists in Wyoming and neighboring states, documenting and preserving folk art for future generations. Thank you Andrea.

 Here is Carol Messerli from Greybull, Debra Inglis from Clark and Sue Blakey from Thermopolis.

Sue Blakey was such a pleasure to meet. She has worked so hard bringing the Juried Folk Festival to the Gift of the Waters Pageant Days in Thermopolis. It was so nice to meet so many people who had been to the Festival last year on vacation and made a point to be there again this year during their trip.

 This is a good picture of Patty Tyrrell's rug she has been working on that is a story rug featuring her dogs driving their Trooper on a mountain trip.

 From the distance you can see our rugs we had on display. It was fun to watch the reactions of people seeing rug hooking for the first time. We are working hard to educate people on Traditional and Primitive rug hooking. There was some real interest in learning the craft from a few. Others were just impressed.

 One view of Carol's nature scape and Debra's floral. You can see the edge of Debra's loopie rug that was hooked wide, high, and each loop cut.

 This is my (Sylvia Gauthier, Cody) lion and lamb and the back of Carol's nature scape

 Sheep and Sunflowers and the other floral are two of my rugs and the crock rug is by Patty.

The rug on the left is Carol's first big rug and the one on the right is Patty's cat rug. Those cats are so darn cute!

We met so many nice people and had the best time hooking outside on a beautiful day. I hope our schedules allow us to attend again next year. Thank you Sue Blakey for allowing us to be a part of such an amazing Festival.