Rughooking Workshop with Orlena Broomes

Event Details

Event type: Ages 10+

Merging Cultural Traditions: Rug Hooking with the Basics by Orlena Broomes Ed.D, at the Wellington Heritage Museum on Friday November 17th from 10am-4pm.  The cost of the workshop which includes a take home rug hook kit is $75.00.  Preregistration is required with limited spots available.  Light refreshments will be provided but participants are encouraged to bring a packed lunch and their own coffee/drinks mug.  The Workshop will take place around Tracey Lawko's collaborative art project "Reflections of Ourselves" which celebrates the diverse and rich cultural heritage of Canadians through unique textile-based artworks including a rug hooking example by Orlena.

Over the course of the workshop participants will:

 • Learn how women across cultures historically used simple everyday supplies from the home to create household items. For example, the empty flour and sugar bags, and home-spun yarn and wool were turned into beautiful rugs to decorate and warm the home.

• Design and make a 6x6 inch blocked pattern hooked rug with yarn which they can take home to either frame, mount or join to other squares to make a bigger rug.

• Work together at communal tables, and experience how hardworking traditional women also used these working bees to share ideas, help, socialise and visit with each other.

• Leave the workshop with a deeper awareness of the commonalities that we all share as original inhabitants and recent or early settlers on this great land.

 Orlena Broomes Ed.D. is a social researcher and educator who is passionate about using art as a cultural narrative embodying the lives of diverse people. She uses a unique form of the rug hooking technique to portray the lives of women and the oral tradition of passing down stories through generations. She is also interested in art quilting and spinning.

Her rug hooking and art quilting work have been exhibited at several art shows.