COUNTY LIFE

Strickler brings trips of wool to life – Rug hooking, color dying passions for textile artist

Published

8 months ago

08/10/2024

This is the final story in a three-part summer feature series on unique Montague County artists.
By BARBARA GREEN
[email protected]
Betsy Strickler wants the colors she creates to “sing” and the brighter the better.
While she shares her dyed fabrics through her company The Ringgold Kid Wool Fabric and Patterns, she also takes those colorful strands to create hook rug art. Her rural home is cozy with her artwork from geometric patterns to people, animals and landscapes.
Strickler, 56, and her husband Frank, both retired commercial airline pilots moved to the Ringgold area in 2012 from Decatur. They found themselves moving further away from the Metroplex so they could enjoy being in the country. Frank spends his time working around the property while his wife cultivates her growing business.
Her interest in rug hooking may have been stimulated by her mother who had been a quilter, and after she and her other daughter took an afternoon class on hook rugs they“got into it whole hog.”
“I picked up a hook and started it, but eight years ago I started my business selling fabrics and dying them. My sister also got me interested in dying and I read a lot of books to learn about it. Many dyers are proprietary about their recipe and others publish it all,” explains Strickler.
Read the full feature in the weekend Bowie News.

Betsy Strickler works on a hook rug piece featuring a colorful pet that she hopes to offer for sale benefitting the Rocky Road Animal Refuge. She has done rug hooking for many years, but she has created a unique business offering material she has dyed and hook patterns. (Photo by Barbara Green0

COUNTY LIFE

Nocona Rotary celebrating 100th anniversary

Published

9 hours ago

03/26/2025

bowienews

Nocona Rotary Club is hosting a 100-year anniversary celebration from 4-6 p.m. on March 27 at the H.J. Justin building in downtown Nocona.
This event is free and all are welcome. There will be light refreshments at this come-and-go afternoon, but around 5 p.m. there will be a brief program and plans to take photo of all past and present Rotarians for a keepsake group photo.
Club members are conduct a prize drawing for a trip to either Branson, MO, Las Vegas, NV or Orlando, FL. First prize is a four-night lodging at a two-bedroom condo at the winner’s choice of location.
Second prize is a weekend at a waterfront cottage on Lake Nocona. Prize for a drawing ticket i $100. Proceeds will be used to finish the Blue Mound one-mile walking trail and to continue the club’s annual scholarships to high school seniors as well as the dictionaries for elementary school students.
Current Rotary members have tickets for sale, there also is a QR code on the club Facebook page. They take cash or checks.
The band The Mind’s Eye will provide acoustical music and with two former members in the band, there may be a few Rotary songs of old. It should be a fun event, and don’t miss seeing vintage photos from 1925 to 2025.