Even as a child I loved neat things; interesting antiques and items crafted with character and charm. If I saw something and became smitten, I’d hang on to it knowing someday, it would become useful in ways that weren’t clear at the time. When I was ten and my family moved to the house on Cherry Lane, it was a trip back to the past with none of the modern conveniences of the sixties and seventies. My naivety was greatly affected by how people from the dark ages lived, no inside toilet? The house was definitely a fixer upper to bring it up to the current standards and dad picked away at the priorities to make it a cosy home.
Because the house had stayed untouched with plaster, lath and wood plank exterior walls, that was all that separated us from the cold outside making warmth and comfort the top of the list with winter coming. Dad had Burgoyne’s Heating install an oil furnace that would warm every room, ceiling ducts in the upstairs and floor registers on the main level. Up until then the only heat source the house had ever known was a small wood stove in the kitchen that surely had the previous occupants clad in thick sweaters and long johns in the other areas of the house. There was evidence that sheets had been hung in the doorways that led to the hall and back porch to keep the heat in the kitchen where they probably hung out during the day. Until the furnace came, only the kitchen offered comfort and we huddled there dreading going upstairs to our icy beds.
Although the little wood stove was small it churned out a lot of heat. It was so adorable with its ornate casting and craftsmanship that we no longer see today. Everywhere you looked there was a decorative swirl or detail on its curvaceous girth. There was an amazing ornate skirt that probably had a chrome plating and a domed finial top, now void of chrome and painted gold. The mica was still intact which was surprising from its age. I used to stare at the small silvery windows, mesmerized by the flickering flames that danced behind them.
Dad was going to chuck the old stove to the road side after the furnace was up and running but I begged him to let me have it. I don’t know why he indulged me, it was heavy and had to be lugged to the basement where it would only sit and rust in the dampness. I must have presented a pretty good argument because we stored it until I got older, moved out and took it with me. I dragged it around for years, in and out of a first marriage, various apartments and finally to my current abode with hubby number two. I never knew why, I just wanted it because it was unique, old and full of character.
So, when we renovated the building that my shop is in now, I bought an old mantel surround, painted it red and put the stove there, fashioning a fake pipe out of an aluminum vent and painted it flat black to match the stove so it looked like it was hooked up to a chimney outside. It was a sweet element of the past for the studio, fitting in nicely with the antiques I gathered for displays and the gorgeous antique staircase railing and newel post that we installed that had been harvested from an old house.
I could have sold that stove many times over the years as people noticed it and wanted the history. It was built in Sackville, New Brunswick at a place called Chas. Fawcett and some folks were very familiar with the foundry that made it. They all agreed it was a good call not to discard it.
One of the interesting features of the stove is a decorate crown that pivots to the side to expose a two-burner top for double duty as a cooker. Considering the lack of an electric range that had clearly never been installed in the kitchen I would imagine many a meal was heated on top of the old faithful wood stove. It had seen its day and wouldn't be wet certified now but with a bit of welding to replace the back plate and some new fire bricks it could be used, maybe outdoors with a stove pipe through a sheltering roof.
The other item in that house that piqued my curiosity was a large oil cloth that covered the bare floor boards in the back-storage room. Every time I went in there to fetch a canned good for mom or steal a cookie out of the tin, I marveled at the colours and the Jacobean flowers printed on the cloth. The softness and blend of earth tones really filled my budding artist soul. After my parents both passed away and the house was cleared out to be sold, I took a number of photos and gathered up several large pieces as it was cracked and falling apart, thinking perhaps, well I really don’t know what I was thinking, it was long before my hooking days, I just knew that I wanted to preserve it somehow. Perhaps I would paint the image on a floor in a future home. Over the years as I lugged it from pillar to post the pieces began to crumble so I threw them out. As long as I had the photos it would serve whatever purpose I would undertake.
So, when I opened the shop, I thought of that old oil cloth and I dug out the pictures and saw immediately what a handsome rug pattern it would make. Well over 100 years old, I wasn’t worried about copyright and I manipulated the pattern motifs to create an enclosed area so the outer area around them could potentially have a different colour to the interior field. Someone loved the pattern but wished it had a border, making it more traditional. No problem, I added a border using the elements in the center design and named it after the woman that requested it. The first version with just the center and an edge around it, was called Beatrice after my Springhill nana. I’d previously named a rug after my mom so her mother’s name was perfect. Beatrice is an old-fashioned moniker that suited perfectly the antique impression that the pattern relays, but now I think it should be renamed Cherry Lane and use Beatrice for another design.
Yesterday when I opened my email, low and behold there was a photo of Ruth Anne beautifully hooked and it just about blew me away. Excitement coursed through my body as memories flooded me of the old house on Cherry Lane where I spent most of my childhood. Thank-you Marten Doornekamp for sharing it with me. What a fantastic heirloom you've created. I love it!
The palette Marten chose was similar in feel and has that earthiness like the original cloth but different at the same time. The thing I love best about owning a shop is seeing how rug hookers interpret my designs and bring them to life with exquisite colour, often eliciting tears from this sentimental old fool.
Because the house had stayed untouched with plaster, lath and wood plank exterior walls, that was all that separated us from the cold outside making warmth and comfort the top of the list with winter coming. Dad had Burgoyne’s Heating install an oil furnace that would warm every room, ceiling ducts in the upstairs and floor registers on the main level. Up until then the only heat source the house had ever known was a small wood stove in the kitchen that surely had the previous occupants clad in thick sweaters and long johns in the other areas of the house. There was evidence that sheets had been hung in the doorways that led to the hall and back porch to keep the heat in the kitchen where they probably hung out during the day. Until the furnace came, only the kitchen offered comfort and we huddled there dreading going upstairs to our icy beds.
Although the little wood stove was small it churned out a lot of heat. It was so adorable with its ornate casting and craftsmanship that we no longer see today. Everywhere you looked there was a decorative swirl or detail on its curvaceous girth. There was an amazing ornate skirt that probably had a chrome plating and a domed finial top, now void of chrome and painted gold. The mica was still intact which was surprising from its age. I used to stare at the small silvery windows, mesmerized by the flickering flames that danced behind them.
Dad was going to chuck the old stove to the road side after the furnace was up and running but I begged him to let me have it. I don’t know why he indulged me, it was heavy and had to be lugged to the basement where it would only sit and rust in the dampness. I must have presented a pretty good argument because we stored it until I got older, moved out and took it with me. I dragged it around for years, in and out of a first marriage, various apartments and finally to my current abode with hubby number two. I never knew why, I just wanted it because it was unique, old and full of character.
So, when we renovated the building that my shop is in now, I bought an old mantel surround, painted it red and put the stove there, fashioning a fake pipe out of an aluminum vent and painted it flat black to match the stove so it looked like it was hooked up to a chimney outside. It was a sweet element of the past for the studio, fitting in nicely with the antiques I gathered for displays and the gorgeous antique staircase railing and newel post that we installed that had been harvested from an old house.
I could have sold that stove many times over the years as people noticed it and wanted the history. It was built in Sackville, New Brunswick at a place called Chas. Fawcett and some folks were very familiar with the foundry that made it. They all agreed it was a good call not to discard it.
One of the interesting features of the stove is a decorate crown that pivots to the side to expose a two-burner top for double duty as a cooker. Considering the lack of an electric range that had clearly never been installed in the kitchen I would imagine many a meal was heated on top of the old faithful wood stove. It had seen its day and wouldn't be wet certified now but with a bit of welding to replace the back plate and some new fire bricks it could be used, maybe outdoors with a stove pipe through a sheltering roof.
The other item in that house that piqued my curiosity was a large oil cloth that covered the bare floor boards in the back-storage room. Every time I went in there to fetch a canned good for mom or steal a cookie out of the tin, I marveled at the colours and the Jacobean flowers printed on the cloth. The softness and blend of earth tones really filled my budding artist soul. After my parents both passed away and the house was cleared out to be sold, I took a number of photos and gathered up several large pieces as it was cracked and falling apart, thinking perhaps, well I really don’t know what I was thinking, it was long before my hooking days, I just knew that I wanted to preserve it somehow. Perhaps I would paint the image on a floor in a future home. Over the years as I lugged it from pillar to post the pieces began to crumble so I threw them out. As long as I had the photos it would serve whatever purpose I would undertake.
So, when I opened the shop, I thought of that old oil cloth and I dug out the pictures and saw immediately what a handsome rug pattern it would make. Well over 100 years old, I wasn’t worried about copyright and I manipulated the pattern motifs to create an enclosed area so the outer area around them could potentially have a different colour to the interior field. Someone loved the pattern but wished it had a border, making it more traditional. No problem, I added a border using the elements in the center design and named it after the woman that requested it. The first version with just the center and an edge around it, was called Beatrice after my Springhill nana. I’d previously named a rug after my mom so her mother’s name was perfect. Beatrice is an old-fashioned moniker that suited perfectly the antique impression that the pattern relays, but now I think it should be renamed Cherry Lane and use Beatrice for another design.
Yesterday when I opened my email, low and behold there was a photo of Ruth Anne beautifully hooked and it just about blew me away. Excitement coursed through my body as memories flooded me of the old house on Cherry Lane where I spent most of my childhood. Thank-you Marten Doornekamp for sharing it with me. What a fantastic heirloom you've created. I love it!
The palette Marten chose was similar in feel and has that earthiness like the original cloth but different at the same time. The thing I love best about owning a shop is seeing how rug hookers interpret my designs and bring them to life with exquisite colour, often eliciting tears from this sentimental old fool.
Ruth Anne hooked beautifully by Marten Doornekamp
48" x 80"
48" x 80"
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