In the folk art gallery of the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia in downtown Halifax, NS, there’s a colourful early 20th century piece by Francis Silver Hansport that depicts a women’s sewing circle and poses the question:

“One man has typewritten 4,917 words in an hour, but could he keep up with the conversation at a womans [sic] sewing circle [?]”

When I saw it last May, I laughed out loud: I’d just returned to Halifax from Amherst, two hours north, where I’d spent three blissful days at Deanne Fitzpatrick’s rug-hooking studio in the company of a dozen deep-thinking, fast-talking, wise-cracking women. I recognized Mr. Hansport’s question as a rhetorical one.

Rug-hooking—the simple, repetitive act of pulling woollen strips through a burlap backing to make mats and rugs—has vague origins; if it wasn’t born in Atlantic Canada, then it definitely came of age here.

Once scorned as a craft of poverty, hooking has in recent years found new fans, thanks in large part to Newfoundland and Labrador expat and Nova Scotia resident Fitzpatrick, whose colourful, whimsical rugs and books have earned a loyal international following.

Increasingly, that following is turning up in quaint Amherst (pop. 9,500). Several times a year, Fitzpatrick hosts themed workshops in her recently expanded studio on Church Street. Her enthusiasm is infectious–see the YouTube clip below.

A relative newbie to the craft, I found myself in the company of rank beginners and skilled pros; we came from as far away as Toronto, ON,Vancouver, BC, Maine and New Mexico and other parts of the US. (And some of us had been before. As one repeat visitor joked: “We love Deanne so much, we like to say that even if she taught plumbing, we’d still come to her workshops.”)

We came ostensibly for different reasons—to learn technique, to be inspired, to improve our colour sense. But Fitzpatrick, a former counsellor who listens carefully to the silences between the chatter, told us the real reason we were there: “To get permission to keep doing what you’re already doing; to get permission to keep playing.

“Now go,” she said, “and make some mats.”

A version of this story originally appeared on the Canadian Tourism Commission’s web site in July, 2009.

If you’re a rug-hooker, I’d love to hear about some of the other great retreats you’ve attended in Canada or further afield…