How the GMRHG Began

The Green Mountain Rug Hooking Guild began in 1979 with informal rug shows among Anne Ashworth’s rug students. Anne Taught in several locations around Vermont and came up to the Catholic Church in Richmond for a Thursday class on a fall and spring semester schedule. There were many regular students: Pat Heinrich, Pam MacPherson, Mary Burns, Bobbie Pond, Gerry Kuhlman, Myrna Lindholm, Maureen Yates, and myself, among others whose names I can no longer recall.

Anne brought supplies: Dorr swatches, her own dyed swatches, wool by the yard, linen, patterns from Joan Moshimer, frames, hooks, scissors, rug tape. Everything one might need. She would devote at least one class per semester to teaching a dyeing class and was considered an expert on dyeing.

Every summer Anne would invite her students to her home in Tunbridge for lunch, a show and tell and a chance to gather and learn with other hookers. You brought your own sandwich and Anne always made a perfect blueberry cake.

Many of the rugs were hung on the clothesline and others were spread on the grass. I recall meeting Helen Wolfel, her mother-in-law Louise Wolfel, both superb hookers, and Helen Prouty who created a magnificent rug showing an eagle soaring above Camel’s Hump that she hooked to commemorate Vermont’s statehood bicentennial in 1979. I think that rug is now in the state house in Montpelier.

Anne formalized the Guild around 1980 and celebrated with a show aboard the Ticonderoga at Shelburne Museum, held jointly with the Champlain Valley Quilters.

Anne was a talented artist. She was devoted to advancing the art and craft of rug hooking and the Guild continues on with the goal to teach and promote rug hooking in Vermont for the enjoyment and creative development of its members.

Mary Hulette
October 19, 2020