Green Valley Rug Hooking • 4130 Gravenstein Highway North Sebastopol, CA 95472
Brigitta Phy 707-829-9641
[email protected]
New contributor to Jane Olson’s Ruggers Roundtable

I have been hooking since 1998, and come from a long line of hookers. My great-grandmother, Lucy Selen, was hooking when her daughter, my Grandmother Jane Selen, now Olson, was young. The story I have been told was that Lucy made Jane hook her background in around her motifs! I am not sure I believe the story, but I do know that I am a fourth generation rug hooker. I started on a visit to Jane's when my daughter, Sadie Jane, was a baby. My first project took me a year - a small chair seat pad. My next project, another chair pad, took another year, and so on. About year five, I became “hooked” and since then have hooked at least forty pieces!

I live in northern California in the small wine country town of Sebastopol. My husband Jeff, and I manage two children (Sadie, 13, and Grant, 9), two day jobs (Jeff’s a welder and I run a mail order rose nursery as well as Green Valley Rug Hooking), and many hobbies!  We are busy with carpooling to school, 14 laying hens, daily rides to ballet class and to the skate park. We feel very fortunate to live in a beautiful place and have such a great family.

I have been working with Jane over the past few years, trying to learn as much as I can from a master, and now dye all her swatches for her. I teach rug hooking classes all year and am also the new publisher of the Ruggers Roundtable, started in 1960 by Mildren Sprout, continued from 1976-2010 by Jane Olson. I am so excited to be carrying on the family tradition and to honor the legacy of Jane’s creative career. I call myself the luckiest hooker ever!

I look forward to introducing myself to you and sharing with you the wonderful art of rug hooking.

Sincerely,
Brigitta (Gita) Phy