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Welcome back to Stories from the Field and a new Show Me Folk News post by a guest author. Show Me Folk News is dedicated space for staff, student workers, traditional artists, cultural experts, consultants, and community scholars to share photo essay on an array of Missouri folk and traditional arts topics.
Guest blogger Elinor Barrett is a longtime mid-Missouri rug hooker, owner of Wool & Cotton, no. 219–a purveyor of traditional textile materials and tools–and a popular teacher in the tradition. From Barrett, Missouri Folk Arts learned the poignant backstory of one pattern in our current exhibit Folk Arts in Bloom.
Here, she shares background on the rug hooking tradition, as well as the inspiration for the Dawn’s Daisies pattern. Christina Edholm adapted that pattern with vivid, hand-dyed wool for her interpretation of the rug included in the exhibit. Read on to learn more.
Dawn Hiemstra and the Inspiration for Dawn’s Daisies
by Elinor Barrett
an April 2023 social hook in. Photo credit:
Deborah A. Bailey
Rug hooking in Missouri is a fiber craft that dates to at least the 1850s when the premium books of local agricultural fairs included listings for homemade “pulled rugs.” Women used burlap sacks and charcoal to draw out their patterns. They crafted hooks from bent nails and crochet hooks set in wooden handles. For yarn, they made do with strips of worn-out clothing. The result was a utilitarian mat to help keep their feet warm on the drafty cabin floors.
While many of the needle and fiber arts are somewhat solitary endeavors, rug hooking evolved into a social activity. Women created opportunities to hook together, sharing materials, techniques, and the latest news and stories. Much like quilting bees, these social events helped offset isolation and loneliness in rural areas and in frontier country. These socials became known as ‘hook-ins’ and that tradition continues today.
Contemporary rug hookers enjoy a multitude of social hooking opportunities. There is a national organization for rug hookers (ATHA, the Association of Traditional Hooking Artists) and guild chapters at the local level. Missouri has four ATHA chapters: State Line Rug Hookers Guild in the Kansas City region, Ozark Mountain Rug Hooking Guild in the Springfield area, St. Louis Rug Hooking Guild, and the Big Muddy Rug Hookers Guild that broadly covers central Missouri. Each of these groups host hook-ins regularly and draw attendees from throughout the Midwest. ATHA hosts a biennial conference that rotates to different locations in the country, and there is a national show produced annually at Sauder Village in Archbold, Ohio. At these events, teachers present classes, and vendors display and sell the newest wools, patterns, and tools such as hooks and frames.
From attending these events and rug hooking classes and retreat camps, rug hookers throughout the country get to meet and often form lifelong friendships, much like the local guilds. One such hooker was Dawn Hiemstra from Angola, Indiana. Dawn loved to travel to hook-ins and camps; she made friends wherever she went. For many years, she attended a rug retreat each summer at Wooly Woolens in Independence, Missouri, which drew hookers, like Dawn, from as far away as Ohio and Michigan. She was known for her positive outlook, generosity, and willingness to help anyone. At home in Indiana, she rode a Harley motorcycle, and she wore a bright orange, floral apron whenever she hooked. She was a fast hooker and completed a large number of beautiful rugs.
laughter during a social hook in.
Photo courtesy of Keith Kemmer.
vertical floral rug designed
by Wendy Miller of Red Saltbox.
Courtesy of Keith Kemmer
a popular mid-19th century floral design.
Courtesy of Keith Kemmer
Dawn was known for her soul-shaking-head-thrown-all-the-way-back laugh that no one in the room could miss. If you were looking for her, all you had to do was listen for her laugh or spot that vivid apron in the crowd. Sadly, Dawn developed Covid during the pandemic. In 2021, she was admitted to the hospital where she then died. Her many friends across the Midwest were shocked by the loss of such a vibrant woman so well known in the rug hooking community. In tribute, Dawn’s friends and members of her local guild developed the Dawn Hiemstra Memorial Hook-in held annually in Ohio over a weekend near her birthday. In February 2026, the guild hosted its fifth annual event.
In another tribute, rug hooking designer Keith Kemmer created a pattern for our beloved friend. Called Dawn’s Daisies, the pattern makes a 38″ x 26.5″-inch rug featuring large and colorful daisy blossoms that echo those on Dawn’s apron. During the 2023 memorial hook in, a handful of attendees chose to hook the pattern. Keith’s pattern is available to purchase, along with his other patterns, through Katie Hartner, owner of A Nimble Thimble/Woolley Fox. His tribute to our friend Dawn has now traveled far beyond her home state and offers inspiration to rug hookers far and wide, including here in Missouri thanks to Christina Edholm.
