DECEMBER
TIP OF THE MONTH
Original wood block print designed by
May and Frances Gearhart
circa 1929, Pasadena, CA​
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This month's tips are from LeAnn VanCamp on how she uses needle felting and zippers in her hooked rugs, as well as, explaining the importance of attaching a label on the back of your rugs. Let's start with the rug she's holding called "It's Ho For My Pony". It's from the “Let’s Play” Exhibit at the 2025 Sauder Village Rug Exhibit.
LeAnn enjoys adding 3-dimensional elements into her work along with mixed media such as needle felting (the toy horse), quillies (for wheels) leather cording (reins) and proddy (leaves) which is pleasing to the eye.
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When felting an object in a rug, use core wool for the base and felt it right onto your backing fabric. She prefers using linen for this technique so the core wool can be packed tightly at about 1/4" high then begins to hook the rug. If she were to felt the white roving then hook her piece, wool dust from all of the colors would have discolored the horse.
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The picture on the right displays the label on the back of her rug which also included the poem the Gearhart sisters wrote to go along with the wood block print.
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There are a few ways to print your labels:
1. Hand write your information on a piece of fabric with a ball-point pen and hand stitch label to back of your rug. Just like the cat pillow.
2. Once you type the information for the labels, save the computer document and measure out precisely an 8 1/2" x 11" piece of linen and iron on
a piece of freezer paper with the shiny side down onto the linen. This helps the fabric slide through your printer easily. Peel off the freezer
paper and hand stitch label to your rug.
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3. You can also use iron-on transfer paper, but you have to remember to "MIRROR" your document (print will be backwards) before you print onto
the transfer paper, then iron on to a piece of fabric, hand stitch to back of rug.
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The same strategy was used in her "How to Hook A Plaid" class with Jyl Robbins. LeAnn drew her pattern then began sculpting core wool compact enough to tower above the hooked loops for the butterfly's body to give the illusion it's just about to land on the flower. As LeAnn began to hook the plaid border, there were many colored dust fibers on the core wool. She had to gently brush off the dust particles before attempting to needle felt the yellow roving.
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Stay tuned
for the finished product :)
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Blackie Chan was created in a hooking "Up Close" class with Linda Powell. Students were asked to bring a picture of an item (or purchase a kit from her), but they were only hooking an "Up Close" portion of it like her "Barnwood" rug pictured below. LeAnn chose to hook her beloved cat, Blackie Chan, so she drew the pattern on linen and wanted his eye to be the prominent feature of the rug so she needle felted it instead of hooking it. FANTASTIC decision on her part because it really does capture the color variations to resemble a realistic eye. Can you feel him staring at you?
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LeAnn turned this rug into a pillow and placed a simple label on the back to enter it in Sauder Village Rug Hooking show in 2022.​
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Title: Barnwood
Hooked by Linda Powell
Village Rim Rug Hooking
This photo caught LeAnn's attention and she just had to turn that photo into a rug. The little girl's eyes are mesmerizing and LeAnn wanted to capture their gorgeous color by needle felting them just like she did in her cat pillow.
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Manistee Rug Camp 2023 was the perfect opportunity for her to take a hooking portraits class from Tish Murphy. LeAnn shared the photo with Tish and explained she was an art teacher and wanted to draw the pattern herself. Tish dyed the wool but was perplexed as to why LeAnn didn't want to hook the eyes. She showed Tish a picture of her cat pillow to ease her concerns, but had never seen this technique done before when hooking a face. Have faith Tish :)
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As you can see in the pictures above how LeAnn felted core wool for the eyes and began to hook the face. Another tip LeAnn shared with our group was how she organizes her wool by attaching it directly to her rug for easy access. Refer to the picture on the right.
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STAY TUNED.....Photo coming soon of her finished product :)
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If you're interested in learning how to hook faces, check out the resources below.
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Click on the smiley face
to read an article from Cindi Gay
on how to hook a face.