Sisters

I have always thought of the women in the hooking community as sisters. Like many who went before us, we are joined together by a love of the art form, which is a bond as strong as women kind. Lucky for me, I now share that bond with a biological sister as well. I introduced my sister Nancy to hooking nearly a year ago. She and I have always enjoyed various art and craft forms, and I knew that it would be something she would love. Also, I was a fledgling teacher in need of a student. Did I say guinea pig?

Anxious to ply my new-found skills, I convinced her to try a small primitive house that had been designed by one of our OHCG teachers, Iris Simpson, and shared at a Teachers’ Branch meeting. I thought it was the perfect starting piece, as it had a simple house, a tree and some lettering (which Nancy turned into a fence instead - already she was a creative student).
She wasn’t even finished this small piece before she was ready to move on to something larger, which she found in a pattern at Bests Harbour in Glen Williams. Perhaps we were both a little over zealous with the size of her second project, but she fell in love with the pattern and who was I to talk her out of it. Have you ever tried to convince your older sister (who happens to be a Taurus) to change her mind about anything????

The next bit of convincing was that she should join me at the Trent School of Rug Hooking for a week that would take her completely away from the tedium of jobs, laundry and other things from which we love to escape. She was “hooked” by the end of the first day. I must confess I loved having her there to share my joy and meet all the other “sisters”. And they all loved meeting her.

Her next act of sisterly devotion was to be part of my first one-day workshop in my home. Five “friendlies” took part - one sister and four girlfriends, all from different aspects of my life who had never met one another. Nancy was the common denominator. And my star pupil. She was the first to finish her primitive sampler and she certainly had the best tension and technique of the class.

It wasn’t long before she completed that large second project and was chomping at the bit to do more. The next projects were discovered at our area hook in, where she acquired some patterns and lots of inspiration. Now her wool collection is growing in leaps and bounds and she is a true convert.

What’s it like to hook with your sister? It’s awesome. It adds even more cement to a relationship that is already rock solid. (Not that it was that way in childhood - I was ghastly to her!) It’s yet another reason to get together and wile away a day, which I always love to do.
We are not the only sisters among the hooking sisterhood. Seems everywhere I go, I run into them. I guess we are on to something. There are also lots of other gene combinations among the “sisters”. There are mothers/daughters, aunts/nieces and even some three-generation combinations. One friend will go to Trent this year with two daughters and a grand-daughter. That is really awesome!

Although I am of East Coast heritage, the rug hooking was not introduced there.
As far as I know, no ancestor of mine ever pulled a single loop. But now, with the two of us, hooking is firmly entrenched in the Scott gene pool. I hope that our daughters join us some day. They certainly are supportive of what we are doing. And they can become hooking cousins, which would be another gene link in the sisterhood.

So, here’s to my sister Nancy. A great student, a wonderful hooker and the best sister a girl could ask for.