In 1964, I began studying color and dyeing wool for my own rug hooking projects. I actually finished my first hooked rug in 1965. For the next few years I worked closely with my teacher, Edna Callis until in 1971, I became an accredited McGown teacher. I was teaching an adult education class in Norwood, MA and all the while I continued my study of color and dyeing. I developed many new color formulas for my student’s projects as well as my own. In 1972 my swatch business became a reality under the name of Colors by Maryanne. The pink tag with the bunny  (as you see here) became familiar around the rug hooking community. I dyed and sold these swatches of color to my own students and by mail order to many other rug  hookers around the country.

The bunny on the tag was inspired by the “Bunny Rug” that I hooked in the late 60’s. I added bunnies, birch trees, fields and sky and thereby had fun adapting one of Pearl McGown’s designs , “Imp” , to become a favorite in our family. Even today it holds a very special place over the mantle in the family room.

After that first adult ed class, I added others in Sharon, MA as well as Franklin, MA. My swatch business grew and kept me quite busy but when I moved to Wrentham, MA I decided to teach rug hooking in my home. These classes became very popular and eventually became the focus of my teaching until about 1980 when I began traveling to Garrison, MD and Pacific Grove, CA  to teach at one week rug seminars held by the National Guild of PK McGown Rug Hookcrafters, Inc. Before many years had passed I was teaching at all three guild schools as well as several others.

In other words, I reached out to rug hookers all over the country. I found that most were interested in new  formulas and information about color. Over the many years of my teaching and hooking rugs myself I was developing formulas and studying color. Eventually I put together a  3 day course on the basics of color and dyeing. I am still teaching this class to interested rug hookers.

Somewhere along the way I came up with the Country Color Formulas and Samples. Then later as I worked more and more with PRO Chem washfast acid dyes, I put together formulas and samples for them also. I have many more formulas for both Cushing dyes and PRO Chem washfast acid dyes than what I have published.  Watch for them here

If you don’t already have a set of the Country Colors and a set of the PRO Chem– formulas and samples, I suggest that you order your own sets today (To the store).  I will be adding new formulas from time to time and also suggestions for formula variations based on the fact that you already have the set of 34 colors and/or the PRO Chem set of 16 colors.

To contact Maryanne click here