About Joetheflowerguy

 "I often don't know why I choose to hook a certain image.  I feel it, more than I see it, most times.  It seems that my mind works in full-range color mode 24/7.  I may dream of an image and then create it the following day, or it will sit in my mind, and then appear on the canvas on another day.   When I hook, mentally and emotionally, I feel that I am transcending somewhere else while looking down at the canvas.  Parts of me and what I love about a certain rug piece gets hooked into place.  I'm always quietly surprised when the final loop is pulled."

I'm driven by a wandering mind that brings images in my sleep (and I problem solve color issues sometimes as well when during the daylight hours I can't seem to figure it out).  Mornings may arrive with my being perched over a piece of linen mapping out a new design or grabbing a sharpie to alter a design on the frame.   

Joetheflowerguy is just a regular farm guy that likes to hook.  I was nicknamed this because of my building and gifting floral displays to others.   My life with fibre began, I believe, when I would sit as a child on the bottom of my mother's old treddle sewing machine when she sewed or patched something.   I was taught to knit in my teens and have continued to do so periodically over the last four decades. 

I learned how to hook rugs while working at Deanne Fitzpatrick Studios.  I was in a much needed change of life mode and needed to indulge in something that would allow more reflection, creativity, and relaxation.

This married well with my home environment in a rural farm area near the Northumberland Strait of Nova Scotia where I and my husband manage large floral and vegetable gardens, orchards, and a greenhouse.  My ongoing love of dogs transcends into being outdoors with them and my logo (an original rug called "Loopy") is a composite of the many dogs I've had since being here on the farm.   

Currently many of the larger pieces are framed with repurposed wood and are built by my husband in our small barn as the rug pieces are completed.   If an item is framed, it will be listed in the product description.

My favorite "hooking" frame is a Cheticamp Frame from Deanne Fitzpatrick Studios and my best hook is an heirloom one handed down from my spouse's grandmother.  

 

I was told that you know a piece is good if the expected result is the unexpected.  Such as when our four year-old grandchild opened a present to discover a new rug which she promptly threw on the floor and seated herself on it... it was what one should expect for a rug!