Emily O'Leary

New work, old work, crafts, etc. linktr.ee/emilyaoleary

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Amazing Hand Hooked Wool Rugs of Sleeping Dogs

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PSA:

Take a good long look at these images.

This is what happens if you don’t keep a puncture repair kit around to repair any holes or tears in your dog’s exterior surface. Even if your pup seems fine in the moments after a puncture, over the long hours they will gradually lose air until they end up like these poor babies you see above.

If you have reason to believe that your pupper may have suffered a puncture, then just think: HAPPY.

1. Holes: Look over your dog’s whole body regularly to make sure there aren’t any small holes, especially if they’ve been playing around sharp objects!

2. Air: Sometimes punctures can be too small to see— or hidden by the fur, especially in longhaired breeds— but you should be able to hear the tell tale hiss of escaping air, or even feel it against your hand when petting your dog’s fur.

3. Patch: Shave the area around the puncture, clean it with dog friendly antiseptic cream (or highly diluted baby shampoo in a pinch) and apply a patch. If you don’t have a vet-grade patch with you and the puncture is severe, then you can use duct tape.

4. Pump: Even if you caught the problem early, a dog can lose air very rapidly from even a small puncture. Always carry an air pump when you’re out with your dog, and make sure to reinflate them fully in the event of a puncture, just like you do every night before they go to bed.

5. Your vet: Even if your pup seems fine now, you should always take them to a vet as soon as possible after they’ve suffered a puncture. A vet can check that the patch is securely sealed, and look for more punctures.

Remember! HAPPY makes for happy dogs and happy humans!

This has been a PSA.

[mydignityisinflames]

Also the artist is on Tumblr!

@emiliaoleary

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2021 holiday card (around 4"x6")

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My 2023 linocut xmas card

[emiliaoleary]

Are you from/have a connection to Cape Breton? Rug hooking is a lovely craft and I haven't much heard of people outside of Nova Scotia do it! Your work is really beautiful. I've showed it to my mum who also does rug hooking

Great question! I'm originally from Massachusetts and have lived in Austin, TX and Brooklyn, NY. I actually learned how to rug hook from old books and Judy Taylor's very helpful pdf:

while I was living in Texas. At that point I had no connection to Nova Scotia besides an unknown great grandparent who emigrated in the early 20th c.

But in the years since first starting to hook I've been to Nova Scotia several times, meeting other rug hookers and exploring the area (Deanne Fitzpatrick in Amherst is a particularly welcoming hooker with a painterly style of hooking). I love Cape Breton in particular. I've visited Cheticamp and am heartened by how the Acadians preserved their culture.

My partner is a public school teacher here in NYC so I'm sort of tied to the city. But my dream would be to move to Cape Breton, though I imagine it's not easy to find work. I would love to live among people who practiced the same craft as me.

If you hook, next time I visit Nova Scotia we should get coffee and hook together (here in Brooklyn I'm constantly hooking in cafes and libraries, I like the bustle around me)!

[emiliaoleary]

Hi! I just came across your post showing how you make your dog rugs and wanted to say they're amazing! The detail you work in and the subtle heights to show things like the tendons in the back legs it's just incredible. Really beautiful. Can I ask: do you take commissions, and would you do one referenced off a pet?

Thank you so much! The legs are a really interesting area to work on because of all those little hollows and bumps.

Unfortunately, I don't do commissions or even sell the rugs I make. Maybe some day I'll get over this intense aversion to pricing things!!!

[emiliaoleary]

So happy to have stumbled upon your blog- your work is definitely an instant inspiration!! You have such a fantastic use of texture and every rug has such excellent dimension to it.

Thank you!!

[emiliaoleary]

do you do cats as well or just dogs?

Just dogs. I've only made 9 so far; it takes so long! I'm sure I'll do another animal some time, but I just love to do the dogs.

[emiliaoleary]

just curious, what do you do with all the scrap yarn you cut out? :)

There isn't actually much scrap yarn at all in this process. It's different from tufting, in which people trim the pile by default (I think).

My loops aren't cut unless I'm trimming/sculpting a specific area with scissors, which there isn't that much of (only in fuzzy areas of the animal like the haunches, tail, etc). And in those trimmed areas the excess cut is just a tiny little bit of fluff: like, millimeters. In general the dimension of my rugs is created by me hooking the loops at different lengths.

I do end up with weird small balls of yarn because I wind small amounts for traveling. So I do have ziplocs full of yarn, but I just bring them along and use them. And I guess I do leave about an 1" extra at the end of some of the lengths that I hook (esp if the end is near the edge of the rug), and that gets trimmed. You can see some of those longer ends in the photos below. But it's a pretty small amount of yarn. I also rip out areas pretty frequently, but I can just straight up reuse those lengths of yarn, though they are annoyingly kinked if they've sat for a while. The neck on the last photo below has been pretty much entirely redone at this point, but I've already reused the yarn.

There is scrap linen that gets cut out, but it's small irregularly shaped scraps and I just keep the larger pieces in case I want to hook some coasters or something. If I was really organized, I would hook some small projects in the margins of a dog rug and then cut out everything at once. But I'm simultaneously too slow and too impatient for that.

If you work as slow as I do, rug hooking is a relatively inexpensive, low-waste craft.

[emiliaoleary]

cobalt's grey face pattern looks exactly like my elderly dog's :) i love old black dogs

Her muppet-y eyebrows make her look like an old man... and not a distinguished one

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The back of the hooked rug I just finished, after finishing and before.

The books that taught me how to rug hook emphasized neatness and not jumping over lines of hooking, and I've tried to adhere to that. It makes fixing mistakes a lot easier.

[emiliaoleary]

Is your dog rug punch needle or hooked? And is it yarn?

Hooked! And yarn! Mostly wool.

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Details of rug hooked dog (life-sized medium dog)

Her legs are mottled pink and purplish gray

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Newest dog rug, finished April 2024

Dog with mottled skin

Rug hooked by hand, wool yarn on linen (life-size)

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Dog on dog rug (in progress)

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Close-up of the face of a hand hooked dog rug. Two were just shipped back to me; it's nice to send them out into the world, and nice to get them back.

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Three of Emily O’Leary’s hand-hooked dog rugs, made between 2019-2023

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Thanks @butch4maryoliver for posting the dog rugs! The bottom two photographs are by Bucky Miller for his Wraymour&Flanigan project

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Pre-op rug hooking in the hospital. C-spine disc replacement went fine; I'll have to give the hooking at least a brief rest though