Day three of Sauder Village Rug Hooking Week and it was a historical day for our Green Mountain team! We spent the morning hooking and talking about our upcoming classes (I'm taking the dye class with Wanda Kerr!) and then headed over to Old Sauder Village (which my sister Lindsay kept accidentally calling Old Sturbridge Village... where she lives full time.) The village radiates out from a beautiful green with old trees and includes shops (shoppes?) like a weaver, a basket maker, a glass blower, a pottery shop with someone throwing a vase at the wheel (pictured below), an ice cream parlor (highly recommended!) and an old timey doctor's office that Lindsay called spooky.

In true Green Mountain Hooked Rugs fashion, we commemorated the occasion with a fun and ridiculous photo! Needless to say we had a blast, but our wool was calling so we went back to hook shortly after that!

After hooking the day away I set off for the Founder's Hall with my mom and aunt for two gallery talks, one on Pearl McGown given by her granddaughter Jane McGown Flynn and the second on James and Mercedes Hutchinson given by Janet Conner and Kathy Wright. As a young(er) rug hooker these gallery talks are such an amazing opportunity for me to learn about and connect with the history of my fiber world. I'm well versed in my own family history, but this is only a slice of the history of rug hooking. There are so many powerful women that have helped build and sustain this art form and we owe them so much! While not much of a rug hooker herself, Pearl McGown was a completely self taught artist who not only designed patterns for a large part of her life, but also encouraged the spreading of ideas throughout the rug hooking world by educating rug hooking teachers from across the country! The second gallery talk was about the Hutchinson family's promotion of rug hooking through selling rugs at auction, designing patterns, and commissioning rugs from different artists to sell at auction. 

Jane McGown Flynn pictured above during her gallery talk

Pastel drawings of patterns down by Pearl McGown above

Janet Conner and Kathy Wright during their gallery talk on James and Mercedes Hutchinson above

We start our classes tomorrow morning and continue through to the evening. Stay tuned for our blog tomorrow with pictures from class!