St. Louis Rug Hooking Guild

WELCOME!                                                        

Our Guild meets monthly to learn, to teach and to share our love of traditional wool rug hooking.

New members and guests are always welcome!

Our chapter formed in 1977. We are part of the National Guild of Pearl K. McGown Rug Hookrafters. Our members are of all ages,skill levels, religions, etc.  New members and guests are always welcome.  See our Facebook page for scheduled events.

Facebook:       St. Louis Rug Hooking Guild       

Email:  STLMcGown@outlook.com                    

Please Note:  This site is new and we're still adding to it, as well as updating our facebook page.  Messages will be answered as quickly as possible.

MEETINGS:   Our meetings are generally held on the first Thursday of every month, from 10:30 am to 2 pm.  Doors open at 10 am.  Light snacks are served, but feel free to bring in drinks and lunch.  Please check our Facebook page for event information as we do have some meetings "in the field" and we also attend or host rug hooking events in the area.
Regular meeting location:  St. Timothy's Episcopal Church, 808 N. Mason Road, Creve Coeur, Missouri.  We are in the meeting room at the back of the church so park in the back lot.  NOTE - we are guests at the church, and not a religious organization.

PHOTOS of rugs by our members will be added soon!

DUES:  Current dues, which include membership in the national guild and a subscription to the national news letter and our lending library, are $30 a year.

What is Traditional Wool Rug Hooking?
It is a way to create beautiful rugs, pillows, and other fabric art using strips of wool, a porous backing, and a simple hook.  There are no knots in traditional hooking.  Strips of wool vary from fairly wide to very, very thin.  The wool is often custom dyed.  Styles can vary from dreamy florals to Native American to cartoon to Steampunk.  A Google search of images for Traditional Wool Hooked rugs will give you a notion of the range of our craft.

A Brief History of our Craft:
One generally held theory has Traditional Wool Rug Hooking developing in New England and the maritime provinces of Canada in the early 1800s.  Woven cloth was valuable, so people would save and reuse scraps.  To create rugs to cover cold bare floors, old wool was cut into strips and hooked into feed sack backing.  The coloring of the different scraps lent itself to beautiful original designs.  Burlap fabric replaced feed sacks in the mid-1800s.  Edward Sands Frost made and sold the first commercial rug hooking patterns in the United States around 1868.

Pearl K. McGown published her first book on rug hooking in 1938.  She went on to organize teachers of the craft, starting McGown Teacher Workshops in 1951. Her grand-daughter Jane worked with Pearl to expand these workshops and to publish information and rug hooking patterns.  Their work established the McGown teacher certification program in existence today.

For more information see the national guild website:  McGownGuild.com

Questions?  email us at STLMcGown@outlook.com   OR    Come visit!