September 20 ~ Nancy Jewett
Nancy Jewett came down from Vermont to talk to us. You probably know Nancy’s name from her company Fluffy Peach and Bean. Nancy, a self-taught artist and proud 4th generation Vermonter, launched Fluff and Peachy Bean Designs in October 2003. All of Nancy’s hand drawn designs are inspired by her imagination, life stories, words and quotes with her sense of whimsey. Her abiding love and joy for music, nature, animals and unwavering belief in focusing on the abundance and beauty in life is reflected in her patterns.
You’ve most likely met her vending her beautiful wool and patterns at hook-ins around New England. The topic of her program was A Practical Approach to Color Planning with Useful Tools, an area where many of us seek help. She pointed out key aspects about color planning and how to use some helpful tools. Nancy also brought many of her luscious wools for us to enjoy and maybe take some home.
One of her techniques is her use of a “confetti” background or in a border as shown:
October 18 ~ Liz Marino
Liz shared her experience with the Multicolores Rug Hooking Cooperative in Guatemala. She brought a few rugs she made following the design aesthetics of the Mayan women she visited with.
In recent years, Liz has developed a passion to help and support the Guatemalan Multicolores Cooperative. A quote from their website describes them: “We are a Guatemala registered non-profit organization that supports Maya women in their process of self-discovery and artistic development. Multicolores’ programs are transformative- creating long-term, sustainable impacts that strengthen entire communities. We use art as a tool for exploration and expression, igniting the artists’ many talents and abilities, and empowering them to become powerful agents of change.” She chose to donate her speaker fee to the organization.
November 15 Cyndy Daude
Cyndy lives and teaches in the New London, NH area. She is a certified McGown Teacher and has been teaching the art and craft of rug hooking since 2003.
She enjoys all styles of rug hooking, including fine shading, wide cuts, and color planning. She encourages her students to grow in their art and develop the creative instincts that reside within.
A fun day of exploring concepts and techniques used to create backgrounds that complement and enhance the main motifs of your rugs.
Cyndy discussed:
- Examples of backgrounds and how they affect the subject matter of the rugs
- Color and value choices and how they affect the main motifs
- Methods of hooking backgrounds, including horizontal and vertical, higgily piggily, S shapes, echoing, paisleys and geometric shapes
- When to use dark or light edges
- Using textures in backgrounds
- When to use outlines
- Inspirations from art
A few of Cyndy’s beautiful Rugs
December 13 ~ Holiday Party
We Had a lovely Pot luck lunch which everyone contributed a dish of their choice.
Special Note: Unlike St Agnes, we do have use of the little kitchen area, so if you need to reheat anything, we should be able to do that. But we must leave the area as clean as we found it! Also, please accompany your dish with a short-written blurb about it so anyone with allergies or other limitations can make informed choices.
For a link to the cute primitive Reindeer click on the picture.
Gift Exchange: We had so much fun picking our wrapped gifts. We had no idea who wrapped it or who created the lovely mug rugs. Till after we each took our turn picking and unwrapping for everyone to enjoy!
A few group shots, please take a look at gallery pictures show in Gallery 2025-2026 for a closer look at all these lovely mugs and rugs. Click here
Wool Game: Those that played brought a quarter yard wool (28″ x 18″ ) to play along while Donna reads a book. Participants formed a circle and as Donna read, people will be prompted to pass the wool around until the book ends. Everyone will end up with the 1/4 yd piece of wool they’re left holding onto at the end of the story.
Show and Tell: Members were invited to bring newly completed items as well as those fitting our special invitation category. For December, our special theme is rugs using special techniques. Please take a look at this months gallery 2025-2026 of all the show and tell rugs. Click here for Gallery
January 17~Hook-in
We Had a lovely day of socializing , hooking and seeing all the fun projects being worked on.
Our Special Invitation this month was : First Rug/ Last Rug , please hop over to the Gallery to check those out. Click here to see Gallery.
February 21, Flea market ( cancelled due to snow storm. Rescheduling to follow)
March 21~Lisanne Miller : Color Planning, Where to start and some Pearls of wisdom.
A very fun and educational presentation. Lisanne has been hooking and teaching for many years and is the owner of The W.Cushing and Co. ( for more information please take a look at our newsletter from March).
I have listed some of the points I remember from her presentation. So much great advice! I have added some of the pictures of her rugs.
- Pick your back ground first. decide light or dark.
- Use an inspirational piece, a picture ,wallpaper or even china.
- When doing a piece with a face, do the face last
- Start a “flesh Bucket” if you dye wool use up the little bit of dye for flesh colors or just save anything with pink hues that might be good for faces.
- Hook your rug and make decisions as you hook.
- Avoid just straight lines, even in your border. It causes a problem of being dirt catchers. Do wavy lines to avoid the straight lines. Also in your background you can do arched lines instead of straight.
- If you find your wool is too bright , it can be toned down using tea or coffee.
- Think about your borders, there can be internal borders and external borders. for example look at the leaves and pumpkin rug.
- when working on wallpaper designs as seen below on William morse wall paper design. Start in a corner using all colors picked. To see if it works first. contrast is very important in these rugs.
- Some rugs don’t even need a border.
- Meanwhile some rugs can have sculpted boarders.
- When working on story book pieces, be sure to outline everything in a smaller dark cut.
- Pick one design and experiment with color ideas. See the 8 small tree mats created with different colors, light and darks.
For this months show and tell, head over to gallery pictures for this month, invitational themes and member new rugs. Gallery march 2026
April 18, Rescheduled Flea Market
Fun had by all, such amazing finds for everyone. After sharing our show and tells(check out the gallery), and the challenge rugs. We settled in to bidding and purchasing everything to do with fiber arts, mainly rug hooking.
There were many rug hooking frames, a bunch of wool cutters, a full table with uncut wool pieces, books, patterns and noodles of wool.
Here are few pictures from our meeting!
May, 2026 : Donna Allen Journey Presentation
Donna Is a fiber enthusiast ,her foray into needle work began with crewel embroidery and needlepoint, counted cross stitch. Drawn and pulled threadwork on linen, rug hooking, crocheting and knitting. She loves it all, but has been hooking for 25 years and has been knitting for the last 5 years. Please take a look at the gallery of all her beautiful work. Gallery, 2025-2026
Special Invitation: Patriotic Theme
Show and Tell:
