Today’s marvelous thing was discovered on Tacky Raccoon’s blog. They are kind enough to regularly include my posts in their weekly links roundup. Go check them out!

Fiber artist Emily O’Leary makes artful area rugs like you’ve never seen. Her hand-hooked rugs look like supine dogs. Okay, from certain angles, maybe they resemble road kill just a teensy bit, but from the right angle, they truly look real. Using a mix of different weights, types, and hues of yarn, someone O’Leary is able to make very believable 2-dimensional representations of lying dogs. I could see how placing a rug like that in a dear departed pet’s favorite spot would be a comfort.

O’Leary is completely transparent about her process, and says that she enjoys “hooking in the wild” because it makes her “an ambassador for making things in general and rug hooking in particular.” Love that! I’m glad her art is somewhat portable, since it takes months to complete each dog rug. That makes sense. They look like labors of love.

“I really feel like I’ve built a relationship with the object. Sometimes the dogs I hook have wounds or scars. The dog rug I’m working on right now is missing a little chunk of her ear. I want to depict them as they are, not stuffed animal versions.”

You can follow Emily O’Leary on her website and on Instagram.