The Yorkshire couple who have saved the folk tradition of rag rug-making - and now have an exhibition at the Ryedale Folk Museum

LOUISA CREED cannot fully make out her own vibrant artworks hanging in the gallery at Ryedale Folk Museum. Her eyes aren’t what they were, and the photographer has to steer her gently for each shot. Many photographs are taken as Louisa sits before rag rugs she has made over the years. Some are by her late husband Lewis, who took up the craft after ten years of watching his wife hook and pull rags into pictures.

By Julian Cole

Published 24th Jun 2023, 06:00 BST

Many photographs are taken as Louisa sits before rag rugs she has made over the years. Some are by her late husband Lewis, who took up the craft after ten years of watching his wife hook and pull rags into pictures.

Louisa describes what she does as ‘painting in fabric’. Her rag rugs often portray animals, cats frequently as she loves cats. The first fabric picture she made, in 1989, was called Rosie In The Airing Cupboard. She cut up some of Lewis’s old shirts for that one.

Other rag rugs capture scenes from the US to Greece to Japan, with many of Yorkshire and Orkney. Some are more abstract; all are bright and evocative, despite humble beginnings as old woollen jumpers or scraps of material.