Mum's Rug

This rug was made by my mother Esther (Tess) Mabe, nee Lupton.  She made it in the mid 1980s at the request of my sister Jan for her thatched cottage in Kent.  It now resides in my kitchen in York.  Mum was born in 1917 in the village of Little Crosby in Lancashire where she grew up, but spent all her married life in Kent. She died in 2007.  When I was growing up I remember proddy rugs that she had made in front of our open fire:  they were always of a geometric design with a black border.  But as we grew up and money became a bit more plentiful she stopped making them – I believe this rug was the first she had made for about 30 years. 

I took up rag-rugging and joined Ebor Ruggers in 2009.  My father then gave me her “prodder” which he had kept.  It was made, I would guess in the 1930s or early 1940s, by my mother’s Uncle Ned (born in 1881) of wood from a holly tree and simply shaped into a point.   I use it all the time for making proddy mats.  I wish I had asked Mum more about this craft and its history and practice within her family while she was alive, but I am pleased to think that I am carrying on a family tradition going back now for several generations.

The mat is 51”x 23” (130cm x 60cm) and made out of various textiles which my mother got mainly from the local charity shop where she volunteered.  It is backed with hessian.