After high school, Kathie Hills dreamed she’d follow her father and drive a truck. Instead, she got married, had children, and cleaned houses by day while cooking at Moody’s by night. Sometime in there, she also became a contemporary master rug hooker, learning from LaVerne Dickson and Marjorie Orff Freeman. Rug hooking was practiced in colonial times by converting scraps of worn clothing into rugs by cutting the fabric into thin strips and with a crochet-like hook, pushing it through a piece of stretched burlap and looping it back again. In Maine, and especially in Waldoboro, craft ascended into art. Waldoboro’s rugs took on a sculptural dimension, with the wool piled high and then clipped. Kathie Hills, however, works without piling the wool, in her own style and patterns. Hooked rugs are made with extraordinary love and dedication. A 3’x4’ rug can take more than six months to complete. Materials can run up to $1,000. Perhaps this is why rug hookers rarely sell their rugs, preferring to give them to family and friends. Jean Lawrence was an early fan of Kathie’s work. She organized a show of Kathie’s rugs at the Waldoborough Historical Museum. A year or so later, she asked Kathie to sit on its Board and finally, to be the head curator of rugs and quilts.
My first rug took me eighteen years. I got started, and then I had a baby. You don’t hook when you have a baby. You can’t. And then I had another baby.
One day, I was waiting at the diner, and I had the counter. And there was a truck driver there. LaVerne and one of the girls come in and sat down, so there’s the truckdriver, LaVerne and the other girl, and LaVerne says, “Child, I think it’s time you come back and start hooking.” She always called us ‘child.’
Well, that guy spit out his eggs. And she says to him, “Just what kind of hooker do you think she is? She hooks rugs. I think you’ve got a dirty mind, sir.” And that’s how I got started again.
LaVerne drove into my head: “Do not start another rug until you get one finished. Otherwise, you’ll never finish it.” So, I went back after eighteen years and finished that rug. It was chair seat of rose buds. My second one was a loon, and the third one was pinecones. I have finished 36 rugs since.
A group of us would meet at LaVerne’s house and hook. With my pinecones, LaVerne told me I should do a wave to make the pinecone. Well, I did, but I didn’t like how it looked. So, I took it to Marjorie, and this is where everything changed. She said, “Kathi. You hook the way you want to hook.”
“Well,” I said, “I think it’s going to take a long time, but I think each little segment should be hooked because that’s what I see when I look at the pinecone. I don’t see waves.”
She said, “Then hook it.” So, I did, and it took me forever to do the other two pinecones, but each little segment is what I did, with shading and the whole nine yards. I call it ‘Moonlight Pinecones’ because it’s supposed to be when the moon’s out, and that’s why the pine needles are bright. I made the background dark green because that’s my vision. I love color.
I think of my style as both traditional and wild. Waldoboro is known for its flowered rugs. Marjorie Freeman, she did flowers. LaVerne did pictorials. Beautiful pictorials. She was known for her fruits. She did vegetables, too. I like doing my own thing. Someone told me that my rug of a fisherman was like a Van Gogh.
Sometimes when I’m at the camp, I will start outside at the table or on the swing and listen to the birds and hook, then go inside and continue. And all of a sudden I’ll feel tired, look at my watch, and it will be 2:00 in the morning.
When I’m hooking and getting near done, I will be starting another one. It will be on the floor with all the colors, and that’s how I build the next project.
LaVerne always told me to start with what’s on top, but I always start at the bottom and work up. This one of the Museum, I will do the flowers and grass here, and these are the dandelions. So, I put my hand into the bag, grab a piece of wool, and find a place for it. I have a tendency to do my loops close together. Then I go, I just keep going. And when I get to the end, I pull up the last loop.
I haven’t sold a rug yet. I give them away to friends and family and to the museum. Each one was mega hours. I have to have the vision for the rug before I can sit down and hook it. I put so much time into imagining, preparing and hooking, it’s like my baby. That’s why giving them away is the hardest part.
I’ve inherited over 20 hookers’ wools and stuff, and my cellar is full. I collect their hooks. And I collect their rugs. I also have some hooked rugs that people didn’t finish. When Bonnie Gallant died, her husband gave me one of her finished rugs and a couple of her unfinished rugs. So, I hope to finish those rugs and give one to each to her two granddaughters before they get married. Bonnie never got to meet the younger granddaughter, but she loved the one she did meet. I think it’s important the girls each have a rug of hers.
It’s the same with Jean Lawrence. She had a chair seat she’d been working on probably for 30 years, and then she died. So, you know what? I’m going to finish it. And it will be in the museum.
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