rug-maker, was born on 25 February 1893 at Tunnel. Widowed in 1936, she brought up her nine children at Retreat in north-eastern Tasmania. Continuing the tradition of her mother, Maude Kettle began to make hooked rugs in the late 1930s and continued to do so until the mid-1970s. Most of her designs were geometric, the earliest employing straight lines while later examples incorporate circles and scrolls. Charcoal from the fire was used to draw up the designs, at first on chaff bags and later on lengths of hessian. The rugs were edged with pieces of men’s old work trousers and the fabric used in the hooked areas came from old clothes. Commercially produced rug-hooking needles were generally used, but at one time a needle was made by her son-in-law from a six-inch nail. The rugs were not made for sale but given to the children and grand-children who collected the old clothes for her.
Maude Kettle died in Launceston, Tasmania, on 1 October 1983. One of her daughters has continued the tradition of making rugs.
- Writers:
- McPhee, John
- Date written:
- 1995
- Last updated:
- 2011
