Rug artist turns pandemic passion into small business

Hanna Eidson lost her bartending job when COVID-19 hit in March 2020, so with her first CERB cheque, she bought her first tufting gun to push away the pandemic blues.

A tufting gun is a metal device which shoots strands of dyed wool through durable cloth stretched over a frame. She started with hand hooking rugs, but tufting soon became her main outlet.

“I love art that is more tactile, and I love working with wool,” says Eidson. “My other hobby is knitting, so I’m using the same material in all of my interests.”

Her business is called H.H. Hooks. With over 98,000 Instagram followers, her business’s tufted rugs are a popular choice of home decor. Her designs feature different species of fish, seagulls, food, and anything else she dreams up in vivid colour. But her most-loved design is of her favourite animal, the crocodile.

Eidson, 30, grew up in San Luis Obispo, Calif. She moved to Canada in 2012 to attend McGill University, and later moved to Nova Scotia after graduating in 2016.

After the move, she took her first rug hooking class and says she “was hooked immediately.”

She typically sells her work through drops that she promotes on her Instagram. She wouldn’t say exactly how many rugs she’s sold, but one drop includes anything she can fit on her frame. That’s about 20 rugs and some extra smaller ones.

Her fish rugs range in price from $40 for a “little fishie”, $155 for a guppy and $170 for a trout.

She says she gets inspiration for her rugs by paying close attention to quirky design elements she encounters in her everyday life. She looks at food packaging while grocery shopping, gets inspiration from old advertisements and is influenced by her mother’s art.

“I picked up that very graphic, but slightly absurdist style from her,” says Eidson. “I would also wake up in the middle of the night and write down crazy things in my phone notes – like rats with wings.”

She prioritizes using high quality local materials; she uses wool sourced from primarily P.E.I and New Brunswick.

Kathleen Mifflin owns her own pieces of Eidson’s early work. She has pillows with a watermelon slice and a lime. She also has a more personalized piece of Chester, Mifflin’s chocolate Lab. 

The two women have been friends for over eight years.

“Hanna is a very gregarious, outgoing, fun-loving, silly person,” says Mifflin. “She tries to channel her humour through her art. She doesn’t take herself or her work too seriously.”

As the holidays approach, she expects demand for her art to increase. The fish rugs, she says, help her survive as a business.

Even though her rugs are popular, Eidson sometimes struggles as an independent artist.

“Being a small business owner is so hard,” says Eidson. “It’s just trying to survive and do this as a job is so tough sometimes.”

To overcome hard times, she reminds herself why she enjoys what she does.

“I have the silliest, funnest job,” says Eidson. “I have to go glue a bunch of stuff today. I can’t be stressed about this.”