The Wag Wugs Story
Julie Hicks-Pledger, Founder and Maker of Wag Wugs, caught the fiber arts fever early and spent years as an art teacher spreading the delight of improv weaving with recycled and repurposed materials. Looms loomed large her classrooms: hula hoop looms, toilet paper roll looms, and oversized loop frames cobbled together from scrap wood. The wagging all began with one of these looms.
The Wag became a Rug
Along came the pandemic and Julie, sequestered and desperate for the soothing making-zany-things-with-her-hands provides, asked a friend to build an oversized potholder (loop) loom.
She repurposed her growing stash of thrift store, secondhand shop and unmendable garments into weaving loops for a rag rug. And, oh look, her dogs were right there, ready to be product testers.
This first rug, after a brief stint as a human rug, passed the doggie durability test by protecting her car seats to and from a muddy hike with her beloved dogs. Later still, this same protype washed up nicely to cushion the dogs’ beds and (ahem) the dogs’ spot on her bed. The rug was getting a lot of wagging.
Wag Wugs is the alchemy of a scrappy heritage, a cartoonish classroom loom, a few retired t-shirts, and some very loved dogs.
