A Short Biography
I began rug hooking in 1995 while I was living in Michigan. One day while attending a pioneer festival on the lawn of Waterloo Historical Farm, I became enthralled with a group of rug hookers who were demonstrating their craft. One of the hookers was creating an exquisite peackock with a full tail of turquoise and green.
I couldn't believe it. Were my eyes deceiving me? Here was a textile art that had no limit. I no longer had to be tied to the warp of the loom and its patterns, nor the stitches of the knitting needle and its rows, nor the foot of the sewing machine and its tension. The rug medium was a textile art form as free as paint on a canvas. With a simple linen-burlap foundation and thin cut strips of wool dyed any color, I could create in wool any image I could imagine and draw.
Over the years I have been experimenting with form and color and texture, trying to push the boundaries of traditional rug making. As my art has developed, so has my need for more and more control over the hues of wool I use, like a painter who needs to develop her own palette of colors. Recently this has led me to develop a palette dyeing and value-based hooking technique, a technique I call VIP Hooking. She has recently published a step-by-step instructional book about the palette dyeing process. It is called: The Wool Palette: a rug hooker's guide to dyeing your own color palette of wool.
What is VIP Rug Hooking and Palette Dyeing? VIP Hooking stands for 'Value Intense Palette' hooking. It begins with the creation of three primary color dyes - a red, a yellow, and a blue - which are mixed in parts to create the twelve hues on the color wheel, neutrals, and grays. Each of the hues is dyed in eight values from very light to very dark. Tints and shades of these hues are also created in order to alter the intensity of the color. Since all the hues are related to each other, there is no worry about certain colors not working in a design. So the wool can be hooked into the design by concentrating on the value and intensity of the color rather than the color itself. Check out 'The Wool Palette' page for information about my new book describing step-by-step the entire process. I also have a tab on this website with complete instructions on how to get started as a VIP Rug Hooker.
April DeConick has had rugs featured in the Celebration juried series and Rug Hooking Magazine. She has authored articles for the ATHA Newsletter and Rug Hooking Magazine. She is the author of the step-by-step instructional book, The Wool Palette: a rug hooker's guide to dyeing your own color palette of wool. Her rugs have been exhibited at Sauder Village and local events.