Punching a Pillow

For the first time in a long time, I have room in my schedule for a personal project. Believe me, I’d much rather be out in the world doing craft shows, teaching workshops, and finding inspiration at a residency, but this pandemic had other plans for the spring season. But I’m certainly making the most of this time!

I took a week-long rug hooking course at the John C. Campbell Folk School in the fall, but punch needle is something totally different (even though they’re both referred to as “rug hooking” in many circles). The traditional rug hooking I learned at the Folk School involved pulling up little strips of cut wool fabric (with a hooked tool) through primitive linen backgrounds, working from the back to the front. Punch needle, on the other hand, uses a large needle that’s threaded with yarn (or other material) and you push the needle through your fabric from the backside, creating loops on the frontside.

As a beginner to both of these crafts, I have found punch needle techniques to be far more forgiving, and I think that has to do with using thick yarn. It fills out your piece more neatly, and you don’t have to constantly worry that your strips of fabric are getting twisted or if your loops are slightly different heights. Punching is also significantly faster so you see way more progress in the same amount of time compared to traditional rug hooking.

I received Rose Pearlman’s “Modern Rug Hooking” book for Christmas and after reading through it, I was able to get right to work. I had tried to teach myself and make some pieces on my own before that, but was having trouble getting things to work. It was simple things I had wrong - I hadn’t purchased the right background fabric, the yarn I wanted to use was way too thin (or thick) for the punch needle I had, etc. However, after reading through the book, I could move on from all of those rookie mistakes.

I’ve been dabbling in some mixed media fiber art pieces, combining traditional rug hooking with punching and even needle felting, so this was my first large scale project that’s created from 100% punch needle techniques. This accent pillow took about 10 hours of work and nearly $100 worth of yarn and other materials, so it’s not for sale (I don’t think anyone would pay that much for a pillow), but I really enjoyed making something just for myself, for my own enjoyment. I know once the pandemic is over and we get back into our busy lives, I would never have the time to invest in something like this, so I’m glad I was able to do this now during this slower season.