Small But Mighty Episode 20: Robin Whitford on running a textile art business that breaks all the rules

Robin Whitford is creative by nature. After selling her machine embroidery business she knew she wanted to have a creative business again. But it wasn’t until she saw a piece of rug hook art online that her business, Hooking Outside the Lines, came to fruition. Robin offers online rug hooking classes, sells supplies and teaches women all around the world how to be creative and express themselves through textile art. If you have ever thought about starting a business that focuses on expressing your creativity, you will want to tune in to hear Robin’s unique story. For more information on how you can get involved in one of Robin’s classes or learn more about rug hooking, visit her website or follow her on Facebook or Instagram.

Full episode transcript

Karen Wilson: Hello, everyone. I hope you're having a great day. I think it's going to be even better now after you hear from my guest. Robin Whitford is a true artist and rug hooking teacher who is building a community of creators through her business, Hooking Outside the Lines, which is definitely going on my list of fave business names. Thanks for joining me on Small but Mighty Biz Stories, Robin. Tell everyone about you and your business.

Robin Whitford: First of all, thank you for having me here. I am happy to talk about my business because it is truly just a passion that I am lucky enough to have been able to turn into a business. Basically, it is me teaching. Most of the work I do is teaching people how to rug hook. Many of my students and community members know how, but it's to learn how to do it in an even more creative way, have more fun with it, and not allow it to add to stress to our lives in any way. We explore a lot, we play a lot. I use the word play all the time in my classes. I just absolutely love everything about rug hooking, so I love sharing it with people in my community.

Karen: I was actually going through your Instagram timeline and there are some beautiful creations there. Tell me about rug hooking. I've done those little kits that you can buy when I was a kid, but I don't think that's quite the same thing and it certainly isn't as intricate and artistic.

Robin: A lot of people, when they hear the word rug hooking now, they have those memories of-- which it's not actually rug hooking in the same way, but it is making rugs, and it was called latch hooking and they still sell those kits. I did buy my daughter one and hoped she would get into it, but she did not. It is very similar. I think latch hooking kind of gets a bad rap a little bit in the more traditional rug hooking community because they are quite commercialized kits and using acrylic yarn and that kind of thing. But the idea is the same. You're making a textile art form. Whether it's to go on the rug, on the wall, on a pillow, it has the same idea.

My technique that I prefer, again, just personal preference, is using a traditional rug hook. It almost looks like a crochet, but the tip of it, there's no latch on it like you would see in those kits that we used to use. Now, that's not to say you can't use those latch ones and do the same kind of work that I do. There is a very well-known rug hooker in the States, who's Canadian, but she lives in the States at the moment, and she actually uses a latch hook from those kits to do her absolutely stunning artwork in the same technique as I do.

The difference mainly is that, in the latch hook kits, you would be getting almost two or three inch pieces of yarn and making a bit of a knot with your loop through your backing fabric. I'm using one continuous strip or lots of different colors. I'm just literally pulling loops through the backing. It's just a loop.

Karen: Interesting. Very interesting.

Robin: It is very simple. People often, when I teaching them how, I kind of joke it's so simple that it feels like how can this even be real because there's one stitch, there is no-- I can't give you a booklet of different stitches because there's really one stitch and all of the different variety comes from the type of material you're using, the height of it, the changing colour but it's all the same stuff.

Karen: So interesting, and yet it doesn't look like the same stitch. Oh, my gosh.

Robin: That's the magic about it. It's kind of magical. There's certain things that I really feel like, when I explain it, it sounds way too boring, so I joke that it's magical. For example, anybody that's done any textile crafts from sewing, knitting, crochet, whatever and they come to this, they're like, "Where do the knots go? Where do you tie the knots so it doesn't unravel on you?" There are absolutely no knots in rug hooking. No knots, no sewing in your ends, no, "I have to put in my end or hide it somehow," and there's none of that. Part of the magic again is it just holds together with the number of fibers that are there. It's just very magical.

Karen: Oh, I love that. How did you get started rug hooking?

Robin: Like I said, I did do latch hook in the '80s probably. I made a very ugly frog, I remember, that I hung proudly in my room. I did not get back to it until only about four years ago, and I have always been crafty or creative. Pretty much I tried every craft. I joked the other day with a group of friends. We counted how many different crafts we've tried and I lost count. I think I was at 15. Everything from jewelry making, to pottery, to sewing, I've tried it. I've not been good at all of them, but I tried.

About eight years ago, I was off work for health reasons and I had signed up for a few painting classes because that was something that has always interested me as well. I really got into it. I loved painting. Then I saw-- and it was literally on Instagram scrolling through and this piece of art, I'll call it, I was like, "What is that?" What I thought at first was a painting was a rug hooked piece. I started following this woman and I really had no idea how she was doing it, and I found that she actually lives 10 minutes away from me.

She ended up teaching a class in her home about four years ago and that was the first class, and literally and pun intended, I was hooked. It is very much like painting with yarn, so I feel like it's combined everything I've loved my whole life about being creative. I have a huge stash of yarn and fabric from all my other crafts; and rug hooking, you can use anything and everything. If you can pull it through the backing fabric, you can use it. I pretty much stopped everything else and just rug hook.

Karen: It's funny that you brought up the painting because as I was looking through your website and Instagram, that was the thing that kept coming to mind, "I wonder if Robin's a painter?" Because I did get the sense that there were a few other crafts that you'd tried or been involved in.

Robin: Yes, I have tried many, many. It's funny because I never felt like I was a very good painter. Other than my mom wanting to put up my paintings in her house, nobody else ever really volunteered to buy my paintings. Whereas I feel like I do much better with yarn. I've had a really positive response with yarn. I think I'll be sticking to yarn for quite some time.

Karen: And it's so unique. I feel like so many people have either prints or reproduced canvases or whatever of paintings in their homes, but to have something that's actually three-dimensional, that depth that it adds is more interesting and also, it's just a good conversation piece. You have friends over and they're admiring your decor and they notice that and, "Oh, cool." Because a lot of these fiber arts are not as commonly done as they were when our mothers were younger. It's nice to see this resurgence of them coming out in the crafting community. Talk a little bit about how you get your ideas for pieces. Do you do commissions? Do you just come up with ideas and then sell your original work? What's that process like?

Robin: It's almost an overwhelming process and I think most creative people, and most rug hookers certainly when I talked to them, we have way more ideas than we do hours in a day to produce them. Ideas can come from anywhere. For me, a lot of my pieces right now start as photographs. I'm always taking pictures of things that I just find interesting, either the color is interesting or the texture is interesting. I am really getting close up on things to get some weird detail in a log or in the grass or something, and that might start a piece.

I have done some commissions of homes, for example. I love doing architecture and so that is a fun way to commemorate a special childhood home or that kind of thing. I love doing that as well. I always tell people too, especially if they look at some of my more detailed or intricate pieces first, and then they think, "Oh, I'm not going to sign up for an introduction class because I can't envision that." I started doing stripes and circles, like going really back to the basics. Rug hooking lends itself beautifully to abstract, to simple motifs, to repetitive patterns.

A whole series of different colored circles is gorgeous. I've seen so many different varieties of that. One of my favourite pieces that I did was one of my first ones with literally circles and stripes. You don't have to do detailed designs. A lot of people start out in this form, and especially the rug hookers that come to me to have been hooking for years, but see that I'm doing something a little bit differently, is that many people have bought patterns. Like a cross-stitch or needlepoint you see in the craft stores, and they come with very detailed instructions that you put this color here and you put that color there, and that's fine. I went through a period as well in the '90s of doing cross-stitch and I enjoyed simplicity of those.

Karen: Yes. Totally.

Robin: I knew how it would look. That was part of the satisfaction. It was like, "Okay, I'm buying this kit, because I know at the end, if I follow the instructions, it's going to look just like the picture." After a while, many of us, I think even rug hookers that have been hooking for many years, started that way, are now having that itch of like, "Okay, I can't find the kits that inspire me or that excite me in the same way." I help people either take kits that they have, so they might have designs already and many people do. We end up buying more than we can hook. They'll make it their own. Some people will be like, "Oh, I had this kit and it has a white house and a lake upfront, but I want to add my dogs." I'm like, "Okay, let's add your dogs." It sounds very simple but a lot of people are afraid to make changes to a pattern. I help people with that kind of stuff for the most part.

Karen: Hence the name, Hooking Outside the Lines.

Robin: Exactly. When I sell my kits, because I do have a few that I've sold, I always tell people, "Do not feel that you have to use all the colors that I've included. Do not feel you have to follow my lines exactly." Rug hooking is so freeing that I really encourage people to play with it, have fun with it, and to make it their own.

Karen: In school, you get rewarded for coloring a picture and not going outside the lines. There is something so nice about the pictures that the kids come and they bring home and there's things that are purple that never show up in nature as purple. It's like that exploration of where your mind can go and what you can create that it's the unexpected. That can make a piece more interesting and original. If you're putting a little piece of yourself into it, even if you've used a pattern for everything but adding your dogs in, it adds that element of personal touch to it, which is quite lovely.

Robin: Absolutely. That's one of the exciting things. I think I had a student recently in one of my classes, which is specifically about learning to design. Even though people have very similar photographs to start with, some of them chose my flowers, and it was sort of my picture, the same pic, but all of their designs were different. There's a certain level of satisfaction that I don't think people realize until they've done it. If you've done it one way with kits, and now all of a sudden you do it and it's like that is really your own. There is no other flower that is going to look like that. It is really satisfying and exciting.

Then when you add your hooks, your loops to it, and your own color choices, it is really, really exciting. One of the caveats to that and I always let people know when they're in my class is sometimes they are not going to work, so you have to be prepared. Because when you're buying a kit, you know if you follow instructions, it's going to look like that. When you're doing your own, some of them are going to be amazing and some of them aren't. I have those that I produced that I end up pulling out, which again is getting one of the magical things about rug hooking, it's nothing is ever wasted.

Karen: I know, I was just thinking that. That's really appealing.

Robin: It is. It is so appealing and so comforting for me, especially when I was starting out, but even now. Other than the time that you put into it, obviously you can't get that back, but I reuse every piece of yarn or wool or fabric. My background fabric if I've designed all over it and colored, I turn it over and I color on the other side until I'm happy with the new design. It never is wasted. If I've done a whole piece of pink and I'm like, "Oh, gosh, I hate that pink," I pull it out and I save that for another project and I put in a new color and keep going. You're not wasting anything and it's a great opportunity to reuse. I cut up t-shirts. I cut up old scarves. Anything literally that can be cut up and pulled through the loop, you can use for rug hooking. Sheets, bedsheets. You can buy beautiful new wools and yarns for this but you can equally use all repurposed fabrics. It is endless possibilities.

Karen: Speaking of time, how long does it…and I know it probably varies depending on the size and the detail that goes into a piece. But roughly how long does it take to do a rug hooking project?

Robin: I really need to sit down and count to be honest, because I don't have a good grasp of time when I'm hooking. Time can really fly by and I don't notice. It really depends on the piece, like you said. If I'm doing circles and stripes, and I just give myself permission to be like I'm going to see what happens, I'm just going to pick up the next color and keep hooking. I can hook pretty quickly, so if I have a couple of hours every day, probably two weeks and I could have a good size rug. I call them rugs. Mine don't go on the floor.

I've done others where I recently finished a piece and it's about 12x36 inches and it's a sunset scene at Sandbanks, which is a local or relatively local beach. That took me about six months of off and on because I was figuring things out, "How do I make this look the way I want, and I put something in." It was during COVID, of course, so my shopping ability was limited. I was missing colors and I did other pieces in between that, but it took a good six months of off and on work to complete it.

Karen: That's a big effort. I can imagine that it would be extremely satisfying to finish a project that takes that long and also just so interesting to watch as it shapes.

Robin: I often take pictures of it throughout the journey because it changes a lot. I'm not the type that plans ahead very well. A lot of my designing is actually while I'm hooking. I have the basic idea of it but then the design actually comes when I'm hooking. Whereas some people really spend a lot of time sketching it out and working out all those details before they even start hooking. Once they're hook in hand, they just can go to town and be done in a few weeks. For me, I enjoy to do it as I go.

I have other smaller pieces, 6x6 or 8x8, I can do in a couple of evenings. A lot of my students in my class, they're doing a 10x10, which is a standard size for one of my classes. In three or four weeks, they can easily have it done and that's just hooking occasionally in their free time. Others, in a couple of days. They are very quick hookers and they will sit for five hours.

Karen: So, what are some of the ways that you're teaching people? You've got workshops, and what are some of the other things that you do?

Robin: Everything's online right now, of course. I have a couple of different-- I start with my intro workshop which is a two-hour and you have everything you need to know about rug hooking in that two hours. That's how simple a craft it is to learn the basics. Then I have different design classes to help people get comfortable in that area of the art form, because again, a lot of people are experienced hookers, but not with the design process.

Then I have what's called the Rug Hooking Creativity Club. That's because so many of us are really passionate about rug hooking. It sounds crazy but we just want to talk about rug hooking and all the elements related to it on a regular basis with other people who are equally passionate. In the club, we meet once a week and an hour and a half, and it is dedicated time for rug hooking. It is so much fun.

I thought at first I'm like, "Okay, there's only going to be me and like three other people that are going to want to do this," but we've had quite a few people join the club and on any given Monday, but during our sessions, there are about 15 people that come, and some don't even get to come to that meeting because they work full time, and hours don't work, but I record everything, so they are happy just to be a part of the community by listening. Then we have a private Facebook group where we connect and share our work in progress and ask for help from each other.

Because there's a lot of different styles like it does-- I say it's a really simple thing, but because there are so many different styles of rug hooking, that somebody who has 20 years of experience doing it one way might be a complete beginner in doing another style of it. Just those little things have been really exciting to explore in a community of passionate rug hookers. That's what the routine is like.

Karen: That's very interesting. You have been writing as well?

Robin: I've been writing a little bit because, well, my approach is kind of different I think to a lot of people that when I initially learned as well-- my teacher, lucky enough for me, that lived nearby, she was very open to all different materials, but there are definitely traditionalists who see what I do and what a few other people do as not true rug hooking because we're not using wool or we're not putting it on the floor and that kind of thing.

I've been writing a few articles. I have another one coming out this summer in Rug Hooking Magazine, which is one of the only magazines in North America dedicated to rug hooking. That has been a lot of fun too, to do things a little bit differently. I did an article last year on my feather pattern, which I include all kinds of different, weird fabrics and yarns in it.

Karen: Interesting. We'll have to include a picture in the podcast. You mentioned different styles, in that people might be new to a certain style. What are some of the different styles and are their advantages to going certain ways for different things you're trying to do? How does that work?

Robin: You know how things are passed down in either families or whatever? I often give the example to people that it's like if you're an Italian family and you have a well-known family recipe for spaghetti sauce, that is the way to make it in your family and it is the best way and anything else is a bit less than that. In rug hooking, there's kind of that tradition in different communities where they have their way of doing it. Traditionally, it would be using a certain type of wool fabric, for example, that has developed over the last 50 years. That wool fabric was the only material that should be used. It was a certain thickness of fabric. It should be cut in strips a certain way. The loops when you're making them should be perfectly even as much as possible and finished in very specific ways without getting into detail of how to do all that.

When people came in and started introducing other materials, it was a bit like, "Whoa, you don't put that in the spaghetti sauce." My viewpoint is I'm not trying to ruin anybody's recipe. If that's how they love it and want to continue, that's fine. I just really liked the idea of encouraging people to do what is fun for them, what's accessible, because wool right now is not accessible financially to everybody. It is very expensive.

The background fabric, again, originally and going back hundreds of years when people were making these rugs, they were using feed sacks and any kind of fabric that had a loose enough weave that they could pull things through it. It was a very functional utilitarian craft. It was scraps of fabric that they had from leftover projects. They were not buying anything new. Even the hooks they used originally would have been bent nails, that they would make their own hook from a bent nail.

I appreciate that kind of style in it in the sense that use what you have. Linen, right now, is sort of the gold standard for backing fabric, but linen is $40-$50 Canadian a meter and that's not accessible to everybody. There are reasons for that. It does feel quite lovely compared to burlap. People with allergies, for example, might be bothered the stuff that comes off of a burlap bag, but you can buy burlap at a hardware store that you could use and make it work for a couple of dollars.

Again, I'm on the side of use what you have and affordable and what feels good to you. It feels really good when I'm not buying new things, when I'm repurposing things.

Karen: Absolutely. Do you have favourite materials, whether it's yarns or backing fabrics that you like to use?

Robin: My favourite backing fabric is actually a cotton. Linen is beautiful, but unless you get a bleached linen, linen has a natural color of quite sort of medium brown, medium to dark brown, and I like to be able to see my drawing that I'm doing on my background fabric. I use a cotton, it's called a rug warp. I don't know where it comes from, but anyway, and it's very similar make-- The weave is very similar to the linen or burlap, but it's just made out of cotton. It is very soft to the hands and it is just an off-white color, so it doesn't affect my design, but even that's not inexpensive for people starting out. When I'm teaching a beginner class, I often use, if finance is important, I will use burlap because it's great to learn on and it's what they would've used originally. It's as closest to the original type of material.

In terms of fabric, though, for the actual loops, I couldn't pick one. I love all kinds of fabric. Literally, I've been trying to clean up my studio space, and every time I pull out stuff from my little cubby because I have lots of shelving, I'm like, "Oh, I missed this. I haven't used this, my new favourite or my old favourite." I use everything from silk to stretchy velvet, to wool, cotton, anything, literally anything I have, and I also use like bathing suit fabric, like slinky stuff that I get at remnants and the bolts and stuff like that, that people don't know what I do with it. I'm like, "I'll take that." I will use them all.

Karen: I've asked you a ton about the craft because I've never done rug hooking other than my latch hooking. How did you get started with your business? Because in the grand scheme of things, you haven't been rug hooking for all that long compared to some of the other things you've done.

Robin: About-- Oh, I lose track of the years, but I used to have a small business, not many years ago, machine embroidery. It was similar in that it was a craft-oriented business, but it was machine embroidery and I sold it. Mainly because I was quite busy, which is a wonderful thing, but I had limited space. I was working at my dining room, which is still my studio space. I had a sort of a semi-industrial machine and it was very noisy. It was a problem for my family because I needed to have that machine running almost every day, a good part of the day.

That became a problem, and the fact that I was busy and it was becoming stressful. I was very lucky. I found somebody who wanted to continue it and has, and she's done a wonderful job, but I discovered that I had a thing for small business, that I liked being my own boss. I'd worked for the government before that and knew that that's not something I wanted to go back into. When I was starting to doing the rug hooking, I'm very much an introvert anyway and I've always been into self-help kind of thing. My previous career, university, was in counseling and that's what I did for government. I worked for military family services. I've always been aware of people's thought processes and always trying to help people to feel better about their circumstances or make better decisions that supported their wellbeing.

I really found it rug hooking offered an opportunity to think about a lot of things differently. I often have trouble explaining it. I feel like I'm having trouble, but the idea of when you're rug hooking, you're making a lot of decisions. It's either this color or that color and it's trusting your gut. To me, in life, a lot of us don't do that anymore, or when we get away from that, we've ended up in situations where we're not happy anymore.

It certainly happened to me in my work. I've made, "Oh, this is a good job according to some standard out there that was imposed on me and I believed it and accepted it so I took that job and then I got a promotion and then I ended up somehow in this position that was not making me happy." Rug hooking, I find it's you can think about things in a different way and practice those mini life skills of like, "I'm going to trust myself. I'm going to give myself permission to make mistakes. It's okay if this piece is ugly. We're not doing brain surgery, so I'm going to try it," because that's another inhibitor for many people. They are just too scared to try.

Karen: And you can take it out and start over.

Robin: Exactly. A lot of those little things came to me after I'd sold my embroidery business, feeling like maybe I could incorporate what I used to do a little bit into my new passion, which is all about rug hooking. Although we don't focus on the self-help part of it, if you will, because I feel that's innate in it, providing that atmosphere of safety, of trusting yourself of like we all have an inner artist, we all have ability to tap into it if we want to. In a safe place, it is so rewarding. I started just teaching intro classes at a local yarn shop and was getting that kind of feedback after a three hour class. People were like, "Wow, this is amazing." I thought, "Okay, it's not just me."

Karen: That's so great.

Robin: A lot of people feel, and again, this is true of other crafts, I won't say rug hooking has a lead on this, knitting, etc., but there's something extra special I think about rug hooking because there aren't a myriad of things you need to learn or a myriad of patterns or stitches or counting involved. It is really freeing if you want it to be.

That's how I started. It was just teaching, and then when COVID started, I was like, "I can do this online." I've been very busy and because rug hooking is still relatively unknown to the general public, there's not a lot of opportunities to go out and buy supplies so I do sell things just as a way to help my customers have easy access to the materials that I use.

Karen: As you were talking about those byproducts of having a hobby this, I was thinking about all these studies about kids and extracurricular activities and school and how being involved means usually is correlated with better grades. I'm not a big believer in grades and tests and things like that, but that full life is something I think is super important, whether you are 10 or 40 or 60, you need things that you have an interest in and you want to pursue, and something that you feel like you can be successful at. Of course, that confidence building that you get from it would be beneficial and hopefully also passes on into other areas.

Robin: Absolutely. Yes, rug hooking is something that I had students with like a granddaughter and the grandmother could take the class together because there's no reason why young people can't learn it. It's very, like I said, so simple. Before COVID I did demos and the five-year-old, you would usually pick it up very easily because they are so in the moment, they're not worried about all kinds of other things. I think it's a really good hobby for anybody that's curious to do something different.

Karen: That's so interesting.

Robin: I do believe that those skills translate innately to other areas of our life for sure.

Karen: Well, and the artistic people that I know tend to love to explore other mediums for that creativity. I am myself not super into crafts. I wish I was. My mother really wanted me to be, she tried but it just didn't take. I admire people who are so talented at it and it sounds like rug hooking too, is you don't have to necessarily be an artist or have an artistic inclination to do something that can be really aesthetically pleasing.

Robin: Absolutely. You have to have a desire to want to do it I think. Talking about kids, I of course wants the best for my kids and neither one of them would be considered crafty whatsoever. My son, actually, I remember in elementary school when they made him color something, he came home and like, "If they make me color one more thing--" He was really insulted. Neither one of them are the least bit interested in rug hooking right now, but I think it's great that they are aware of it and they know and they have that option.

I think that's the important-- if we can pass anything on, it's just that if they ever chose to pick something like this or something else, that they have the competence that they would be able to do it. The artistic part of it, I really think when people talk about talent or natural talent, yes, absolutely some people are born with a beautiful voice and they don't ever seem to practice, but for me, I think I needed to practice rug hooking.

I needed to practice painting, I needed to practice knitting, all of those things that I became-- I won't say I'm good at all of them, but I became efficient and able in all those areas, it took me hours and hours and hours of practice. Even people that are in my design class, I always remind them, "It's not an overnight thing. It's not like you're going to learn this technique and it's going to be like you'll do it the way I do it tomorrow. It's just not the way it is, but that doesn't mean it will be absolutely gorgeous, it'll just be different."

In 10 year’s time, if you continue, you're going to look back and go, "Oh, my gosh, I did that?" And be impressed with yourself how much you've learned in 10 years. It's constant learning but the simple designs in rug hooking can be absolutely gorgeous and just as meaningful and will be kept as keepsakes for generations if you want them to be. They could be circles and stripes. They don't have to be fancy patterns.

Karen: When you look at...is it Jackson Pollock that does the splatter? Some things that are considered fine art, it's like, "Oh, that's interesting."

Robin: Exactly. It's all subjective.

Karen: As you move forward with your business, are you looking forward to getting back to in-person workshops where you can actually be in the same room with people?

Robin: I am somewhat looking forward to-- Well, my first thing I want to do is our creativity club, many of us have never met one another because I have members all over the States and different parts of Canada. We are planning-- We, I say we. I'm planning and I hope they come, a retreat of sorts when it's safe to do so again. Because I feel like we've really connected as people and friendships have been born, so I want to meet these people in person.

I definitely want to go to conferences. Rug hookers, especially in the States, they are great at getting together and having week-long schools where they call it a rug hooking school and they take over either a conference center or a part of a hotel, and set up classrooms and just immerse themselves in rug hooking. I did it once before COVID hit, and it was just so exciting. I hope to be able to teach at some of these, that is the goal, but I'm also happy to go as a student because, again, there's so much to learn and play with and try.

I will continue online, because there's so many benefits to that, as well, our creativity club, I hope will continue for a long time, but obviously meeting in person is irreplaceable.

Karen: Yes, that's a great idea, one of the things that I encourage people when they are--Because, as a content marketer, I'm telling people, "Hey, write," and often, that's not easy for people who don't feel like they're writers. It's all the same objections that I'm sure you hear about rug hooking, things that I've said today. What I'll say is, "Go be creative in another medium if you're experiencing writer's block," because sometimes just the act of letting your brain do something else will open up the floodgates of whatever you need, maybe it's creativity, maybe it's just finding the words, whatever.

It just helps to get things flowing again, and I think that that is part of why having hobbies like this can be so beneficial. Because if you have something to escape into, that's also a productive in a way-- I shouldn't say in a way, it's definitely productive, you're producing something. It's also productive and it just gives you that sense of accomplishment. You hear all the stories of people in workplaces who are struggling and to have that in their off time would be so valuable.

Robin: Absolutely, it's a great therapeutic pastime, and whether they produce or not, because some people, like I said, my piece could take me six months. If you're somebody who's really a perfectionist, you might be pulling out more than you're keeping in, and so you're not actually producing a lot, but the time spent doing it is so rewarding and calming to our nervous system. It's like yoga to me. It has the same benefits. I feel like, on my breathing, it slows me down, it slows down my anxious thoughts, it slows down all of that kind of, well, basically our nervous system. We can think clearer and go back to that market racket writing or whatever we need to do with a clear head for sure.

Karen: So, one of the things that occurs to me is that, as a creative, you've worked in government, government is not known for being a welcoming place for people who are creative and like to break the rules. Obviously, you have some rule breaking in you with the techniques that you use for rug hooking. How do you encourage people to get out of their comfort zone? Because you mentioned earlier you've had people who buy the patterns, and then they want to incorporate some, maybe their dogs or some other personal aspect to it. How do you how do you get people to let go of the pattern and be okay with breaking those rules? Because it's hard. As someone who struggles with that, it's hard. [laughs]

Robin: I'd say it's a slow process for some of them and I feel like it's exposure therapy. For example, one of my members in my creativity club, who's been a member for several months, only about a month ago she was like, "I have to share with you guys, I use acrylic yarn in my rug hooking," and she was one that only used wool strips, like traditional beautiful wool, and she had never considered using yarn for one thing, but never mind acrylic yarn, which again gets a bad rap I think it doesn't deserve for the most part. For her, that was a big deal. She said she did it because she realized after seeing all of the other members and myself use different materials that she was missing out on possibilities, creative possibilities, because she refused initially to try these things.

I don't, first of all, force anybody and I always remind people like, "If you feel more comfortable, and you enjoy doing the kits that are what I call the paint by number, if that's enjoyable for you, then by all means continue." For me, it's those people that say, "Well, I enjoy this, but I'm really curious to know about that. What you guys are doing over there looks neat." I invite people over to show them what we're doing. I do that by-- I do a lot of Facebook Live so that I'm literally showing people what I'm doing. I think at first people expect it to be totally different because I am potentially breaking rules or what they were taught as rules.

I don't tend to see them as rules so much, but I can appreciate where they're coming from and know that, if you've been taught to do something in a certain way and you're the type of person which I was very much, if I'm taught to do something, I don't question it, there's reasons for it, they must be good reasons, I'll just follow what everybody else is doing. With rug hooking, I look at them more like, "Okay, those are suggestions and if the suggestions work, and some of them, there's a reason why you wouldn't want to use burlap for some things, and you'd want to use linen or you'd want to use something else." I am all about sharing those reasons for making decisions. I expose people to these are possibilities, this is what I use, and then with the idea of play with it, see if you like it.

Some things some people are not going to like. I had a friend who I gave her a variety of things and one of them was silk. It was recycled sari silk. It's not inexpensive, it's a quality product, and she was like, "What the heck is this? I hate it." I was just like, "What? How could you hate that? That's silk." She really didn't enjoy hooking with it and that's fine, but it took that process of playing with it, realizing, "Okay, that's not for me." That to me is much more interesting than just doing what everybody else is doing, or doing what you were told 20 years ago. To experiment, that process is much more satisfying to me.

I think to the people that I've spoken to that have taken that journey, some may end up going back to their very traditional hooking style, and that's fine, but most of them I think are-- the ones I've talked to anyway, or the ones that keep coming back to watch my lives or to take my classes are more of the type that, yes, they love the traditional hooking, but they also love the idea of trying different materials and different potentials, or have different possibilities for their art form.

I introduced it very gently and I do joke that we're not doing brain surgery, so if you hate it and it doesn't work out, then you never have to use that again. Don't sweat it. Give it to your friend. Somebody else will use it, nothing lost, and maybe it was a fun afternoon of playing with materials.

Karen: You were describing earlier to have that the loops have to be the; for some of them were traditional rug hookers, they like the loops to all be even, but I don't see that in the work that you do. I don't think that it would be quite the same. It would not have the same depth because it adds interest to have those different, almost a topographical topography of your work, which I think is actually really lovely. It's almost like they were applying manufacturing rules to it.

Robin: Yes, and that is absolutely one way to look at it. I feel like they wanted it to not look homemade, and I mean even as a kid myself, my mom would sew my clothes, and I'd be like, "Mom, just make it so it doesn't look like you made it." I wanted it to look store-bought as a little kid. There is also a reason. When they were making these rugs for the floor and they wanted them to last for 20 years or more, but to actually provide warmth and comfort for their feet in cold winter months that we have here and certainly in the Maritimes where it was very, very popular. The reason for even loops was very practical because then your carpet wore out evenly. If you had high loops, they would get worn off and had ragged edges, or if they were really low in certain spots, they would form a whole much more quickly. Again, very practical.

Karen: Makes total sense.

Robin: Exactly. If I were making a rug for the floor, which I've done one but it hasn't made its way to the floor yet, I would probably work harder to make my loops even for that reason. Because mine are much more artwork for the wall decorative purposes, I absolutely love the texture of different layers and different heights of loops. I'm all about playing with them, but again, it comes from a place of practicality originally, and I think that's where we get stuck. It's sometimes there wasn't an original goal, a reason for this, that we don't need to hang on to anymore. Some of those habits we can let go of because they don't serve us anymore or serve the same purpose and they just add stress. I've seen people pull out loops because they're not even and I'll be like, "Don't worry about it. It's okay."

Karen: It'll all blend in and create its own artistic element. You've done commissions for people. What are some of your favourite things people have asked you to do?

Robin: I think my two favourite things and right now it's my two most popular classes, so I guess they're popular to other people too, or people's favourites, but it's doing flowers. I've had custom order of-- poppies is a favourite, and another one of houses. I've done a few houses that are family homes and usually people either leaving them or have left them a long time ago, so I've commemorated them in that way. Those are two of my favourite things to do.

Karen: You mentioned poppies, which of course have deep meaning in Canada. What are some of the other reasons people choose particular flowers? Is it a favourite? Is it a birth month?

Robin: I've only done a couple for order, but they're also the ones that when I hook them, even if I just start hooking it for myself and I share the work in progress, those are the ones that sell because people have a personal affinity to a certain flower. I did purple coneflowers or Echinacea flower because I love them. I was a terrible gardener, so I often joked to people that all my pictures are my pictures, but they're not my gardens. I much better at making pretty flowers in wool than I am like having them grow outside.

Karen: I can really relate to that.

Robin: Especially this time of the year, I get very ambitious and start thinking, "Oh, yes, this year is going to be the year." Then by end of July when it's really hot and the weeds are growing and I've given that watering and weeding.

Karen: I told my husband when we got married, "The outdoors is your domain. I am not interested." He was fine with it. I have a brown thumb. Robin, how can everyone find you online and connect with you?

Robin: My business is called Hooking Outside the Lines, which when I was looking for a name, it was so obvious to me that I couldn't just have any name like Robin Rug Hooking or something. I literally never follow lines. Even when I make my own designs, I'm still not following the pattern when I'm actually hooking. It is perfect for my style, my approach. My Facebook, my Instagram, are both Hooking Outside the Lines and my website is hookingoutsidethelines.com. Feel free to reach out. If people have questions or stuff like that, I'm happy to answer them.

Karen: Wonderful. Everyone can go onto your website. You always have workshops coming up. They can read about the creativity club and check out the supplies you have available. I'll make sure links to everything get into the show notes so everyone can find you easily. Thank you so, so much for coming on and joining me to talk about your business and how you got started.

Robin: Thank you, Karen. It's been so much fun. I'm always happy to talk about rug hooking any day of the week.

Karen: This is a lot of fun.