The Wool Scrap Chick Workshop is being provided by Jo Ellen Dismukes of Lacey Jane Primitives. ZNE thanks Jo Ellen for her generous time and creative inspiration!

Make these great Easter chicks for family and friends! I make them all year round – everyone really enjoys them. You have permission to make 10 Chicks in one year without consequences, just kidding – but if you decide to sell them – please acknowledge the designer. Thank you so much for your interest!

- Jo Ellen

I am writing this workshop as though you have never rug hooked anything, and if you have questions, please email and I will try to help you. Also, if you would like (optional) - to make things easier - you may purchase a kit from my website and then follow along with the workshop. Details for kit contents and colors available are at the end.

Let’s get started!

~ SUPPLY LIST ~

1/8 yd. wool – cut into ¼” strips or ¼ yd wool for two sided hooked chick
8” sq. wool – uncut(for chick back if only rughooking one side of chick)
1 strip ¼” wide gold for chick beak
1 strip ¼” wide blue for chick eye
8” sq. Red Dot Tracer™
Monks Cloth to fit your frame – about 18” x 18”
Rug Hooking frame or quilters hoop
Coarse/primitive hook for rug hooking
Scissors for fabric
Buttonhole twist to match wool and curved hand sewing needle
Steam Iron, ironing surface and press cloth dishtowel/hand towel)
Spray bottle of water
Polyfil for stuffing chick
24” rusty wire – 20 gauge, needle nose pliers, craft glue
Sewing machine threaded with a neutral thread

~ Here is the Pattern ~

(Click on the image above, and be sure and maximize image size prior to printing.)

~ Working with the Pattern ~

~ Sewing ~

~ The Frame ~

~ Hooking the Wool ~

OK – let’s stop for a moment – listed below are the 10 rules of rughooking. These tips are easy to remember, refer to them as needed.

If you are right-handed, you will hook from right to left, if left-handed hook from left to right.
Begin in the center of the backing and work outwards.
Insert hook every second or third hole, not every hole (this causes warping in the finished piece). The loops should touch not hug each other.
Your loops should be about the height of the width of the strip. If wool is ¼” wide, then your loop should be about ¼” high. Do what you are comfortable with.
At the end of a strip of wool, finish that strip and start the next strip in the same hole.
Outline the design just inside the drawn lines, then fill in.
Do not drag a strip from one place to another under the rug, clip off and start fresh.
Be careful not to twist the strips.
From row to row, stagger the starting and stopping points. The loops act like a zipper, fitting into each other.
10. Hook along the contour of objects, following their shapes on the background.

Most importantly play and have fun and don’t worry too much about rules – rug hooking is simply put – pulling wool strips thru a canvas backing to form loops on the surface.

~ Prepping the Chick to be Stuffed ~

~ Stuffing and Feet ~

~ Hooray! ~

You did it!!! You made a chick!!!! Be proud and then make more!!!! One small note of caution – I used rusty wire for the legs, if you intend as a gift for a child, use wire that is safe for them.

Thank you for participating. I hope you enjoyed the workshop and maybe learned a new way to look at rug hooking. It is not just flat anymore!

Kits are available at my website:

Look in the ZNE Workshop Kit category. There you will find several colors I have dyed especially for this workshop.

1 kit is $13.00 – you choose color for one chick – Enough canvas is included to hook 4 chicks on a 16 x 17 frame. Wool for 3 extra chicks would be $8.00

2 kits are $24.00 – any color you wish.

More than 2 kits – contact me and I can figure up the cost.

Thank you so much!

~ Jo Ellen

Please note, all text, patterns and images in this tutorial are Copyright Jo Ellen Dismukes, 2007.