Hooked Rug Show Returning To Reed School

The 6th Annual Newtown Hooked Rug Show will be at Reed Intermediate School on Saturday, October 13, from 9:30 am to 3 pm. This year’s show promises plenty of returning favorites as well as something new.

The show will run from 9:30 am until 3 pm. Admission is $8 per person; lunch and refreshments will be available, and there is plenty of free parking.

For the first time this year, the show will offer a juried category entitled “Pushing the Limits: New Concepts in Rug Hooking.” Twenty-four submissions have already been accepted and judged by the fiber artists Denyse Schmidt, Missy Stevens and Liz Alpert Fay. The winner will be announced at the show, pieces will be on display, and a professionally-produced CD will be available for purchase.

Everything will be under the same roof: rug displays, 33 vendors, hooking demonstrations, lunch, speaker, workshop and a raffle. Vendors from across the United States will offer all kinds of rug hooking supplies. Shoppers may browse through quantities of accessories, backing fabrics, books, braiding supplies, cutters, dyeing instruction, lap frames, hooking utensils, patterns, wool (hand-dyed pieces and bolt fabrics), etc. An afternoon raffle will award winning ticket-holders $25 gift certificates to show vendors.

The People’s Choice Award will also return this year. A non-juried display, visitors to the show are invited to hang their work at no charge. The winner in this category is selected by visitors’ votes on show day. A blue ribbon will be awarded to the winner and photo of their rug will be used for 2008 publicity.

Guest speaker this year will be the hooking artist and entrepreneur Meg Little. The nationally recognized textile artist will speak on “Developing Design Ideas: My Philosophical View of Making Every Day Special.”

Ms Little will show the commercial aspects of her technique, and explain how she combines education, experience, and her own designs to create customized art rugs for sale.

Also, hooking artist, teacher and writer Susan Feller will offer a three-hour workshop entitled “Manipulating Fibers for Dimensional Effects.” Ms Feller, who has done handwork since childhood, will show how to use a variety of materials and techniques to create exciting, multi-dimensional work.

Three well-known authors will also be at the show, selling and/or signing copies of their new books. Linda Rae Coughlin will be celebrating the release of Modern Hooked Rugs: Inspirational Series, which contains images of 540 rugs crafted b 292 of today’s contemporary rug hooking artists; Amy Oxford will be on hand with Hooked Rugs Today: Volumes One and Two, Ms Oxford’s third and fourth chronicles of the Green Mountain Rug Hooking Guild’s “Hooked in the Mountains” show, widely regarded as the best hooked rug show in the country; and Jessie A. Turbayne will be on hand with The Creative Hooker, a collection of more than 525 images of the best that rug hooking artists from across the United States and Canada have to offer.

Members of the Nutmeg chapter of ATHA will be working on-site all day. They will answer questions and give visitors a first-hand look at how some of their beautiful works of art are made.

All proceeds benefit the Newtown Meeting House.

For additional information the show’s organizers have created a website this year. Visit NewtownHookedRugShow.com for details.