The Lake/Debbie Savage
First Rug on the Last Page
The Lake, 22" x 27", #2– to #6-cut new and recycled wool on linen. Adapted from a photograph by her son and hooked by Debbie Savage, Smyrna, Georgia, and Waynesville, North Carolina, 2014.
Debbie Savage manages two homes in the southern part of the United States and she travels. On a driving trip to Nova Scotia to sightsee, hike, and do some bicycling, Debbie discovered rug hooking. When she happened upon the Hooked Rug Museum of North America, she was willing to park her bicycle long enough to investigate.
While her children were small, Debbie had mastered the skills necessary to make French handsewn and smocked clothing. But in recent years, hiking and bicycling and traveling were her more usual pursuits. Still, she admired beautiful textiles and thought she would look at the hooked rugs. Recognizing that the hooked rugs she saw were, in fact, works of art, the visit to the museum was a turning point. She took the museum director’s suggestion that she visit hooking stores in nearby towns. She spent considerable time browsing at a store named Encompassing Designs in Mahone Bay, where she watched a demonstration of rug hooking and gave it a try.
Debbie’s interest in rug hooking might have ended at the exit door of the rug hooking museum or at the shop in Mahone Bay. But love, as so often happens, spoke to Debbie. When Debbie’s son told his parents he was engaged to be married, Debbie decided to honor her son’s choice by hooking a rug he would treasure.
This article is from the November/December 2015 issue. For more information on our issue, check out our issue page.