Some fun facts about rug hooking and quilts

RUG HOOKING

The earliest forebears of hooked rugs were the floor mats made in Yorkshire, England during the early part of the 19th century.

Rug hooking as we know it today developed in North America, specifically along the Eastern Seaboard in New England in the United States and the Canadian Maritimes.

In its earliest years, rug hooking was a craft of poverty. The vogue for floor coverings in the United States came about after 1830 when factories produced machine-made carpets for the rich.

Antique hooked rugs were created on burlap after 1850 because burlap was free as long as people used old grain feed bags. Traditional Rug Hooking is a craft where rugs are made by pulling loops of yarn or fabric through a stiff woven base such as burlap, linen, or rug warp.

QUILTS

Quilting, the stitching together of layers of padding and fabric, may date back as far as ancient Egypt.

In Europe, quilting appears to have been introduced by Crusaders in the 12th century, in particular in the form of the aketon or gambeson, a quilted garment worn under armour that later developed into the doublet.

Russia holds the oldest example in existence. It is a quilted linen carpet found in a Mongolian cave, and now kept at the Saint Petersburg department of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Archaeology Section Quilt making was common in the late 18th century and early years of the 19th. Most women were busy spinning, weaving and sewing in order to clothe their families. Commercial blankets or woven coverlets were a more economical bed-covering for most people. Only the wealthy had the leisure time for quilt making so colonial quilting was done by only a few.