Design of the hooked rug

oriental rugs

Designs range from the simplest hit-or-miss pattern to a whole flower garden. Here is a list of general types:

Hit-or-miss—variegated scraps used as they came, often with a black border.

Mosaic—soft blending waves of color following one another. The hooking is done the way lines are drawn on a topographical map.

Inch square—tiny blocks of various colors. Squares, diamonds, crosses, etc., are developed by the arrangement of color.

Shell or tongue—deep overlapping scallops, like the tongue rug design.

Basket weave—interlacing stripes.

Log cabin—blocks made up of varicolored L-shaped bands.

Other geometries—stars, circles, triangles, etc.

Nautical—along the seacoast the women hooked careful repli­cas of their husbands' proud brigs and clippers, or anchors, stars and waves.

Sometimes the sailors whiled away long hours at sea with hooked rug projects of their own.