Krueger Demonstrates Talents at Sheep & Wool Festival

By Sarah Watson
Thursday, September 6, 2007 5:43 PM CDT

Livestock Editor

The saying usually goes “love at first sight”, but avid rug-hooker Joyce Krueger thinks of it as “love at first loop.”

Intrigued by a magazine that featured rug-hooking, Joyce, of Waukesha, searched for groups, classes, and teachers of traditional rug-hooking to learn more.

At the time, she had been trying different crafting projects and stumbled upon the article. “I saw a photo in a magazine,” she says. “It took me three or four years to find somebody that was doing rug hooking.”

“I had some old wool skirts and thought this is a good place to recycle those,” she says. “Since then those few wool skirts have multiplied into many pieces of wool.” Those same wool pieces are now displayed proudly throughout the Krueger household.

While searching for other rug hookers, Joyce found an interest group in Waukesha 31 years ago.

“The group was meeting at the YWCA and my son and daughter were taking swimming lessons at the time,” she explains. “We kind of happened on to each other.” Her daughter accompanied Joyce to the classes at the young age of 3.

She never tried hooking on her own because she didn’t have the tools or knowledge to try it herself. Once she got her hands on it though, there was no turning back.

“The first time I made a loop it was love at first loop,” she says.

Joyce remembers and still uses the piece she created over 30 years ago hooking in the YWCA n a naïve geometrically designed rug for the front door.

Since that first meeting, Joyce has been making wool pieces, participating in classes and teaching.

“I have been taking classes from teachers all over the United States,” she explains. “I also teach.”

Joyce is a certified instructor through the McGown Teachers Workshop in Ripley, W.Va. Currently there are less than ten instructors in Wisconsin.

The McGown workshops were created in 1951, by Pearl McGown. It was designed as a workshop for teachers, sharing the ideas and talents with each other in order to perpetuate the craft. Experienced teachers would, over the years, bring in their students, who would in time continue the craft and carry it forward. Joyce teaches classes in her home shop - her basement - and all over the United States. The McGown workshop is the only workshop in the county that trains teachers.

“If you want to be a teacher there are only six workshops in the United States you can attend,” she explains.

After five years of hooking on her own, Joyce found a teacher in Milwaukee that encouraged her to become a teacher, too.

“She was a trained McGown teacher,” she says. “She felt I had the ability to teach.”

Krueger attends a week-long school once a year in March and has been since 1984 to keep her teacher status.

At the workshop, each day is devoted to a new wool piece to work on n decided by the teachers.

“We’re just passing the art of rug hooking along from teacher to teacher,” she says. “The teachers go home and teach what they learn at the workshop to their students.”

There are many rug camps - places to learn new techniques or take classes by teachers.

The teachers are necessary to learn more about the art of rug hooking.

“Once you pull a loop you know how to hook,” she says. The teachers provide more knowledge on color placement.

“You can dye in gradations,” she says of using eight different gradients of the same color, ranging from light to dark shades. The gradient colors are used for a more realistic look. The placement of colors and the dye methods determine the look - realistic or primitive.

Joyce also dyes wool for her own projects and for her students. “I have a whole little kitchen in the back of the basement,” she says.

Joyce usually teaches three classes on Thursdays with 10 students per class in her home. She has offered in home classes since 1986.

“Most students come from the greater Milwaukee area,” she says. Most of them learn about Joyce by word of mouth.

Joyce has taught in seven states and in Canada. She also would attend at least five workshops throughout the year.

“I used to travel a lot more n I am cutting back,” she says and attends one or two, three- to seven-day-long workshops.

“The rug-hooking world is really a small world,” she says. “I pretty much know someone in each state.”

Krueger was a founding member of a Wisconsin rug-hooking guild, Cream City Rug Hookers. The group was formed in 1986-87 as a group of people that wanted to hook together.

“We now have 50 members and meet twice a month,” she says, noting how it has grown from the original ten members.

The name, Cream City, was chosen because of the Cream City bricks found on many buildings in downtown Milwaukee.

The group holds an annual “hook in” in the end of April at the Tommy Thompson Center at Wisconsin State Fair Park, and over 200 people attend from Wisconsin and surrounding states. Attendees bring a rug to hook and work from 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Vendors are also available on-site.

The Cream City Rug-Hookers have teachers come to their gatherings three times a year, and they volunteer at the Wisconsin Museum of Quilts and Fiber Arts located in Cedarburg where the group completes rug documentation.

Documentation consists of information on the rug creator, the rug n fiber, size, shape, backing material - and a photo of the rug along with an identification number. A numbered tag is produced from the information and placed on the back of the rug.

“So when we are a gone n 100 years from now - and somebody finds this rug, they can go to the museum and look up the information and know who we were,” she explains.

The Wisconsin Museum of Quilt & Fiber Arts is the museum sponsored by the Wisconsin Quilt History Project Inc. The museum is located on the historic Hoffman Boeker Farmstead, and hosts many events throughout the year geared towards celebrating the rich history of quilts and fiber arts in addition to historic buildings. The museum is currently holding fundraising to expand. The expansion, including a barn reconstruction, is estimated to cost $4,000,000. The updates will include climate control storage and a library to research different types of textiles.

The Cream City group also participates in demonstrations at the Wisconsin State Fair, Sheep & Wool Festival and rug shows in the Milwaukee area.

At this year’s Wisconsin Sheep & Wool Festival Sept. 7-9, at the Jefferson County fairgrounds in Jefferson, the Cream City Rug Hookers will be hosting a rug show and demonstrating rug-hooking.

The display, Art Under Foot, will be available Sept. 8-9 in the Activity Center on the grounds.

The display focuses on the importance of the fiber arts, the history of textiles, and the many skills fiber artists employ. Rug hooking, like many textile crafts, was an integral part of early American life. The Wisconsin Sheep & Wool Festival is looking forward to hosting this impressive display of handcrafted rugs.

Joyce has created over 100 hooked rugs in her 30-plus years of hooking along with teaching countless numbers of individuals. She has also designed rug patterns that are currently for sale, and has been featured in Rug Hooking Magazine, where she also submits “how to” articles.

Joyce grew up on a farm in Deep River, Iowa around the Amana Colonies area.

“My father had a little bit of everything n there was no specialty,” she says. “He had some cattle, some pigs, corn, soybeans, oats and hay.”

Out of high school, Joyce came to Wisconsin to attend a secretarial school and has resided in Waukesha for 36 years with her husband Donald. The couple has two grown children, Scott and Heather.

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