The Art of Rug Hooking

Explore rug hooking using recycled textiles and coffee sacks. Guided by Jamie Girouard, this three-session workshop is perfect for beginners and experienced crafters. Learn simple techniques to design, create, and finish a small hooked piece while developing your unique style and discovering sustainable approaches to traditional craft.

Some materials will be supplied, but feel free to bring your own. Small frames and hooks will be available for purchase from the instructor.

You will acquire simple, yet effective techniques to create your own hooked pieces from start to finish. You should be able to finish a small piece of the course of three sessions.

First workshop: An introduction to materials and rug hooking techniques focusing on designing and making a small practice piece based on traditional imagery or designs. Explore working with used clothing as our principal media. Practice the main technique of hooking, trying out different tools and materials.

Second workshop: Select images and create individual designs. Techniques can include sketching, working directly from photographs, or making it up as we go along. Participants will then apply their images onto backing material and start working on it.

Third workshop: The final session will be more social as we continue to realize our designs in our ‘loop and lounge’ workspace, and there will be discussions and demonstrations of different ways to finish rugs, including edging and framing.

About the instructor

Jamie Girouard is a Vancouver-based rug builder and teacher. His work attempts to reimagine technological subjects like artificial intelligence and electromagnetic wavelengths and how they are intertwined with human evolution, past and future. Primitive rug hooking is an old method of hand-building rugs. Jamie builds the frames, stretches the burlap base, lays out the design, washes, cuts and dyes materials, and pulls each strip of colour through by hand.

Jamie is deeply committed to reducing consumption and reusing materials. Rug bases were once coffee bean sacks, wool materials are second hand, washed and coloured with mostly natural dyes. Even the hook he uses was once a screwdriver that he smithed into the perfect shape. He is proud that the rugs he creates are nearly 100% organic in content and while they may last for a very long time, are completely biodegradable.

Location: Harmony Room (Upstairs Studio), The Music Box, 1564 Argyle Avenue.