Loopy Wool in Salisbury, New Brunswick, is more than meets the eye. While the arts and craft store is obviously filled with different supplies, it also offers up an art form that’s been passed through the generations. “25 years ago, I was home at Christmas, and my aunt, who is a prolific rug hooker, she showed me rug hooking,” said owner Chris Waddy. “I was not an artist in anyway before then and I took to it immediately.” It was a shared passion between aunt and niece. Chris says her aunt became a mentor for her and encouraged the activity as well, so much so that the two went on a road trip to New England to buy kits and supplies. However, the tradition doesn’t start and end with just two family members. “In the 70s, my great-aunt and my grandmother took a course in Riverview,” Chris said. “My great-aunt also took to rug hooking immediately and she hooked many, many pieces over the years. “She is the one who taught my aunt and my aunt taught me and then I’ve taught my niece and my nephews and some step children as well.” In 2015, Chris started Loopy Wool online and through her home. Eight years later, she has opened her first brick-and-mortar storefront in the town where she grew up. “In the last year-and-a-half I decided to take the plunge and actually open up a storefront because as you can imagine this is the type of product that people want to touch and see in person,” she said. “What’s great about rug hooking is a lot of the pieces of it are related to other fibre arts, so I decided I wouldn’t just be a rug hooking store, I’d be a fibre art store.” Chris hand-dyes all her own wool and creates kits for customers to try rug hooking at home. She also offers classes so that people can learn with a little extra help. Her niece, Zara Waddy, works alongside her at the store when she’s not at school. She’s on track to follow directly in her aunt’s foot steps after starting at a very young age. “I was kind of a nosey child when I went to my Aunt Chris’ house,” she laughed. “She was always doing this really weird thing with a whole bunch of colours and a hoop and I was like, ‘I really want to try this’ and she was like, ‘Okay, well here you go. I know you’re six so it might be a little bit difficult at first, but I think we can slowly go into it and maybe one day you’ll pick it up like I did.’” Zara says she didn’t take to it as immediately as Chris did, but 10 years later it’s something she loves to do. “I feel like everyone should be able to express their emotions and everything in a way and I feel like mine was rug hooking because I can’t draw and I can’t sing, so I resorted to rug hooking,” she said. It’s an art form that she hopes to continue and pass on. “It feels really important to me, like I don’t want to be the end of the string and not do it and not pass it down, so I feel like it’s kind of my job to pass it down to my children and things like that because it’s very important to my family,” said Zara. The store hasn’t even been open for three weeks yet, but Chris is confident that it will hook people just as it did for her family. “I would say it’s the least well known of many of the fibre arts and having a beautiful building like this to be able to showcase it and to be able to show people, I think we’ll be able to grow rug hooking in the area,” she said. “I love that I learned from my aunt and she learned from her great-aunt. My middle name is my great-aunt’s name, it’s a family thing and it’s amazing that I get to take this and run with it.” For more New Brunswick news visit our dedicated provincial page.
