Yarn-sewn Rug

Sewn rugs, such as the three extraordinary examples seen here, added vivid color and ornate decoration to a home’s interior. They covered hearths in the summer, decorated tabletops, and cushioned the floor next to beds. As with fancy needlework, girls could learn “rug work” at school. The immense sense of accomplishment a woman felt upon completing a lively design is suggested in the rug Augustine W. Phillips’s wife Hannah Rosina Maynard Phillips made around 1845, in which she stitched her husband’s name with great pride. The pictorial hearth rug shown here is among the earliest dated yarn-sewn rugs known today.