MiVT: Green Mountain Hooked Rugs

MONTPELIER, Vt. (WCAX) - For Stephanie Krauss, rug hooking seems to be in the family genes.

“I guess it started originally with my great-grandmother, she was a rug hooker and had a shop in Lowell, Massachusetts,” Krauss explained.

While she wasn’t born with her skills, she did learn them at a very young age.

“My mom was a rug hooking teacher, and she taught me how to hook when I was about 5 or 6 years old,” said Krauss, who says she learned the art to be close to her mom.

Now, she and her sisters, her daughters and her brother are all in on the family fun. Krauss owns her own shop in Montpelier, Green Mountain Hooked Rugs.

Krauss does a lot out of her shop. When we went to visit, she was working on a rug as a custom commission for a customer in New Hampshire.

“The design is based on a delft tile,” she explained of the piece she’s been working on for two months.

“I start my mornings by hooking. Normally, I have my rug hooking set up in my living room, I grab a cup of coffee in the morning and I turn on some nice soft music. I turn on public radio,” she said.

Aside from custom commissions, Green Mountain Hooked Rugs is a supply shop for rug hookers. It’s also a place for people to learn the craft, and Krauss is happy to teach them the ropes.

“I love the creative process, I love working with the colors, and I really love working with the rug hookers. The people who come into my shop and are looking to get into a creative craft,” she said.

It’s hard not to be inspired when you’re surrounded by tons and tons of vibrant dyed wool, and loads of beautiful, award-winning hooked rugs. Krauss won the Governor’s Heritage Award in 2010 for the ‘‘Best Traditional Artist” in Vermont.

With a $250 per square foot rate, these rugs are no big box store find.

“They are one of a kind, they’re not mass-produced. They’re created from designs that, in general, that I create,” said Krauss.

They’re durable, too. The rug on the shop floor has traveled through numerous homes after being hooked by Krauss’s mother some 30 years ago.

It’s a rug as long-lasting as the family tradition it comes from.

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