About Us

The History of The Oxford Punch Needle

Birth of a Punch Needle - How the Oxford Punch Needle Came About By Amy Oxford

I ’ve been making hooked rugs with punch needles since 1982. As a professional hooked rug maker, I would regularly hook for 8 hours or more each day. So… it was important to me to have a tool that could keep up with my enthusiasm and allow me to complete my custom rug orders without wearing out my hands, wrists and elbows. I invented the Oxford Punch Needle in 1995 because I wanted a punch needle that was comfortable in my hand, and easy to use.

After 13 years of making hooked rugs, I knew exactly what I wanted in a punch needle. The main ingredient had to be a comfortable handle, along with the best possible quality metal needle. I wanted a needle that would zip through the backing smoothly, with as little effort as possible.

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Amy Oxford

Ergonomic Design

I worked with engineer Greg Fremstad to create my dream tool. Unlike other punch needles, which were shaped more like pencils and required a white knuckle grip while punching, I wanted a big shapely handle that allowed me to keep my hand more relaxed. Making punch needle rugs requires repetitive motion, and lots of it! Pencil shaped handles use the same set of hand muscles to punch the needle down and to pull it up again. We designed a tool that has a large “shelf” to rest your hand on while pushing down. It also has a “bump” in the middle of the handle so that when you pull the needle up, you have something to pull up against. This “shelf” and “bump” allow you to use two different sets of hand motions, one to push down, and another to pull up, reducing the strain to hands and wrists.

We started with several different shaped handle prototypes, and asked dozens of experienced rug punchers to test-drive them and to vote for their favorite one. Quite accidentally, several of our handle options resembled chess pieces. The winning handle that we use today was the one that someone dubbed “The Queen.”

Next we added an electropolished stainless steel needle, shaped to glide through the rug backing with ease. No more wrenching or twisting to force the needle through – just a smooth easy motion. What a relief to this rug maker ’s tired hands!

The metal needles were made for us in Oregon and the maple handles were hand turned on a lathe for us by a company in Maine. After assembling all of the tools on the kitchen table for eleven years, we were very pleased to hire our neighbor, Heidi Whipple, to put them together for us. We especially liked her because she was just as fussy about them as we were!

When we first came out with the Oxford Punch Needle in 1995 we only sold two sizes: #8s and #9 ’s with regular points. I made all of my own rugs with a #9 (3/8” loops) using bulky weight rug yarns - thus the size #9. McAdoo Rugs of North Bennington, Vermont was our best customer and they only used #8 ’s (1/2” loops) because they liked their rugs to be a little bit thicker than mine – thus the size #8.

I had always admired the look of traditional hooked rugs made with strips of wool fabric. (In the rug world, the word “traditional” is used to describe rugs made with a rug hook, which is a crochet-like hook in a wooden handle.) But, when I tried to get the same look by using strips in the punch needle, the results were terrible! The loops were too tall and sloppy but I didn ’t know what to do about it! Then I went on a rug hooking retreat in Maine with seven friends who all made traditionally hooked rugs. “The secret is,” they told me, “The width of your strip has to equal the height of your loop.” I should have known there was a secret! I was thrilled with the simplicity of this new knowledge. My solution was so easy! My friends used ¼” wide strips so their loops needed to be ¼” tall. Eureka! All I needed was a punch needle that made ¼” loops – thus the size #10 was born. Sitting by the ocean in Maine I punched my first strips with my #10. I made a small star mat and my friends were as excited as I was! “Oh my gosh, it looks exactly like ours, we can ’t even tell the difference!” I was over the moon and they were excited too.

This piece was made using ¼” strips in the #10 regular Oxford Punch Needle

For twenty years, I had been making punched rugs, coasters, ornaments and other accessories using a “sawed off” Craftsman ’s Punch Needle. This is another rug tool that I mutilated with a hacksaw to create a very short 1/8” pile. (My apologies to the manufacturers…) I loved the look I got with my improvised tool! It was short and tidy and looked a little bit like needlepoint. I could punch in straight rows and get an effect similar to tapestry weaving. I kept trying to tell everyone how pretty I thought this delicate work was. I offered classes in the technique but no one came. “The loops are so small,” they said in disdain and disbelief! In the late 1990s, Russian miniature punch needle embroidery came into vogue. Called Igolochkoy, this technique uses a tiny punch needle and one or two strands of embroidery floss. Igolochkoy (often called “miniature rug hooking”) helped to make “punch needle” more of a household word with crafters. Suddenly, my lowly “hacked off” punch needle made sense to people and my 1/8” loops, which once looked miniscule, were now gigantic compared to Igolochkoy. Everyone wanted me to saw off their Craftsman ’s Punch Needles! After I had once begged them to come to my class, they started begging me to make a smaller punch. After the 50th person asked, I went into production in 2006. The tool uses the same comfortable handle as our regular punch needle, but the metal needle is much skinnier and shorter.

The new tool needed a name. In my house we called it “The Mini,” but thought it should be called something a little bit more dignified. My mother, who I always turn to for advice, didn ’t like this nickname because she thought it sounded too much like a certain famous mouse. She ’s right of course but “The Mini” stuck and we never came up with a better name.

I often felt frustrated with the lack of fine detail I could achieve with bulky weight yarn in my regular punch needles. I wanted to be able to use skinnier yarns! I also wanted to be able to use thick yarns and thin yarns in the same rug. Thick yarns are great for backgrounds, but I also wanted to be able to use finer yarns to punch delicate features like eyelashes and the outlines of hands. My current hands looked like everyone was wearing gloves that were three sizes too big… even worse, their eyelashes looked like their wand had taken a quadruple dip into the mascara! Now that I had 1000 skinny needles on hand for making “The Mini,” I decided to also make three sizes of fine point punch needles as well. I made them in the same sizes as our regular point punch needles (#8, #9, and #10). Now I have the luxury of combining thick and thin yarns in the same rug - using my regular needles for fat yarns, and my fine needles for thinner yarns.

One of my friends, Louise Kulp, who is an ace rug puncher and Oxford Certified Instructor, was making a punched sign using ‘The Mini.” She wanted something that would make her letters just a little bit taller so they would stand out clearly and be easier to read. So, I created the #13 for her. Because this new tool is just a bit taller than “The Mini,” I called it “The Mini with heels!” The slightly higher loop looks really pretty with “The Mini” and is a nice addition not only for lettering, but for outlines and borders as well. The #13 has turned out to be a big hit.

My greatest reward for designing my tools has been the unexpected letters of thanks that I receive from customers. Many arthritis sufferers have written to say that they thought they would never be able to rug hook again, but that our punch has allowed them to continue with the craft they love! We have also heard from patients recovering from strokes and other ailments who are especially pleased with the Oxford Punch Needle because unlike other punches, it can be threaded with one hand.

I hoped that people would love the new punch, but never expected that my small company would grow in such a big way. Who knew? As my mother said several years ago, “Doesn ’t everyone who wants an Oxford Punch Needle already have one by now?” My punch needles lead much more exciting lives than I do. I wish I could travel to all the places they ’ve been and see all the beautiful rugs that they ’ve made. If only they could send me postcards… In addition to getting to punch in exotic places all over the world, our tools are used by professional rug makers, schools of all kinds, in classes on deluxe cruise ships, in hospitals, and even in prisons (but that ’s a whole ’nother story…)

So there’s the birth of The Oxford Punch Needle. A man in one of my classes wanted me to weld three punch needles together so he could punch three rows at a time. Like a panpipe for punching! I still haven ’t figured that one out yet… This is probably much more than you ever wanted to know about my punch needles, but if you have suffered through thus far, you will be one of the few who knows that “The Mini” is really “The Mouse,” and that the hacksaw is the mother of invention.

Violet Jane Yarn

About Violet Jane Yarn

Violet Jane is our 3-ply, 100% wool rug yarn in uniquely variegated colors. It is hand dyed in an eco-compliant facility by our trained workforce, mostly women, exclusively for The Oxford Company.

Violet Jane was started in 2004 by Sara Jane Burghoff. Amy Oxford loved using Sara ’s gorgeous variegated yarns and when Sara was ready to retire in 2014, Amy purchased the company. Sara ’s grandmother, Eliza Jane Burghoff, taught Sara to rug hook when Sara was six years old. Sara says, “She and I shared a love for spring violets - she had a little rock garden filled with ONLY violets, both purple and white, and I loved picking the long-stemmed flowers in the spring and putting them in her little shoe vases that she kept just for the violets. So, that memory inspired me to use the name Violet Jane.”

Ordering Information

Please note that due to the nature of hand-dyeing, each skein may have a slight variation in color. We don ’t have “dye lots” because each skein is dyed individually. (As opposed to most yarns that are dyed together in one big pot.)

A Word About Online Yarn Orders

We know that computer monitors and device screens vary, so colors may appear slightly different than in person. For best accuracy, we recommend ordering Violet Jane color cards. Our color cards feature strands of yarn in all of our 150 variegated colors.

For more about using Violet Jane see our FAQs

McAdoo Patterns

About our McAdoo Rug Patterns for Punch Needle and Traditional Rug Hooking

All of our patterns are available on 100% cotton monk ’s cloth backing. Our patterns are individually hand drawn and we take special care to draw the pattern lines straight with the weave of the cloth for easier punching/hooking. Our monk ’s cloth has 12 threads per inch (each thread is actually a double thread so there are really 24 threads per inch!). All edges on our monk ’s cloth are serged to prevent fraying. Patterns include 5” of extra backing on each side. Chair pad patterns come on 24” x 24” cloth.

Each McAdoo Pattern includes:

A color photograph of the rug.
A diagram or “map” showing color placement for rug yarn colors.
Yarn amounts needed for every detail of the rug based on the McAdoos’ use of the #8 Oxford Punch Needle which makes 1/2” tall loops. Anyone using #9 (3/8” loops) or #10 (1/4” loops) will have more than enough.

The finished rug as made by McAdoo Rugs. You can of course choose your own colors!

Your pattern will be a line drawing hand traced for you on our light table. It will come with a “map” of the colors they used and a list showing how much yarn you will need for the different areas.

About McAdoo Rugs

When Francis McAdoo (pronounced MAC-uh-doo) retired, he and his wife Cynthia, both avid sailors, set off on a long sailing trip along the coast of Maine. During their travels they would stop and go ashore to visit different harbor towns. It was in one of these small villages that Cynthia saw local women selling hooked rugs by the side of the road. The designs were from Sears, Roebuck and Company and Cynthia found the rugs quite unattractive and thought the women could do much better if they had more beautiful rugs. The economy in this region was very poor and Mrs. McAdoo wanted to do something to help. When she got home to New Jersey, she set to work with a real mission. She sought out experts and learned to hook rugs with the punch needle method, dye her own yarn, and then started designing rugs. Fabulous rugs. She worked diligently in her basement, creating kits for the women she remembered in Maine. Each kit contained a pattern on monk ’s cloth, dyed yarns, and a punch needle. When Cynthia had enough kits to fill her station wagon, she and Frances drove up to Maine in search of people who needed jobs. It was 1972 and this was the beginning of McAdoo Rugs. At first it wasn ’t easy to find anyone who wanted to give this project a try, but in time they got their endeavor off the ground and were able to really make a difference in people ’s lives.
In 1980, their son, Preston McAdoo, took over the business with his wife, coincidentally also named Cynthia. They started in their barn in North Bennington, Vermont and then, as the business grew, moved into a 200-year old red mill across the street. Preston was an abstract painter with a degree in fine art and brought his own artistic talents to the business. McAdoo Rugs flourished and a feature article in The New York Times really put them on the map. They sold rugs in galleries and shops all across the country, worked with decorators, and held private rug shows in people ’s homes, donating a portion of the sales to local charities. They even opened a shop on Lexington Avenue in New York City. In their heyday, McAdoo Rugs employed 10 people in the mill and over 50 rug hookers who worked in their homes. They had seven designers including Preston, his mother and his wife. This cottage industry hummed along, producing between 1000-1500 rugs a year in a variety of sizes from chair pads to enormous room sized rugs and stair runners that graced the homes of presidents, movie stars and world leaders.

Cynthia and Preston retired in 2007 and sold the business to Jeff and Cary Turner. In 2009 the Turners closed citing the “abysmal” economy. I was able to purchase all of the McAdoo patterns at auction in 2010. There are over 1000 of them including over 400 standard designs and more than 600 "custom" designs (designs that the McAdoos' made repeatedly). I ’ve featured 50 of my favorite standard designs here and will keep adding more over time. These rugs have a very special personal meaning to me because I learned to make punch needle rugs when I worked as a home rug hooker for the McAdoos in the early 1980s. I first met Cynthia and Preston when I was a freshman at Bennington College and answered an ad on the college bulletin board for a baby sitter for their two young children. Preston was a car mechanic then, painting in his spare time. When I saw his first prototype rug when he took over the family business I knew I wanted to be a rug maker and I ’ve been making them ever since. It is my pleasure to be able to share these designs with you. All patterns are copyrighted by their respective owners and may not be reproduced without written authorization.

Over 1000 patterns on rolls of paper were delivered to my barn after the auction; it took two moving vans to deliver all of these rolls. In this picture I am also feeling completely overwhelmed and thinking, “What have I done?!”

Preston McAdoo came for 4 days to help me sort the patterns. Now they are all in tidy cubbies in alphabetical order.

Introducing The Oxford Company Crew!

Heidi Whipple started at The Oxford Company by answering an ad in the local paper to assemble Punch Needles in 2007. Over her years with The Oxford Company she has done everything from assembling the punch needles, dying Violet Jane Yarn, customer service, filling orders and teaching classes. In 2013 she became an Oxford Certified Instructor, and in 2019 an Advanced Oxford Certified Instructor. Heidi is now the general manager and oversees the daily activity at The Oxford Company. When Heidi is not at work, she enjoys spending time with family and her two cats.

Christy Lombardo has been with The Oxford Company since 2017, where she first started as a dye assistant to Heidi. She then graduated to dyeing all of the Violet Jane yarn line and now has moved on to helping with product design and development. Christy has a Master’s degree in historic preservation and spent 10 years working as an architectural conservator in NYC before making her escape to the beautiful Vermont countryside. She loves color and all things fiber and in her spare time can be found knitting, quilting, dyeing her own line of yarn, and undertaking house renovation projects.

Dave Stankoski (Product Development & QC) has been with The Oxford Company since the end of 2017. His first gig here was helping Amy put together a series of tutorial videos for her youtube channel. With punch needle sales on the rise, he also pitched in and helped with punch needle assembly. His obsessive attention to detail in punch needle assembly led him to handling quality control. He now helps with product development, QC, filling orders, IT support - basically whatever needs to be done. In a previous life, he worked in television broadcast operations and engineering. Outside of work, he can be found playing guitar, mowing the lawn, shoveling snow or trying to perfect his nap skills.

Hannah, a native of Cornwall, VT, is a graduate of Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) and comes from an artistic and crafting family, making the move to working at The Oxford Company an easy one. She is always ready to help out where ever needed and loves the creative side to social media. Hannah lives in Cornwall with her family, neurotic dog, and ferocious cat, and can often times be found in the woods around Addison County exploring nature with her feral children, among the books in Otter Creek Used Books, in an ice rink watching hockey or coaching figure skating, knitting, or working at the local elementary school. (She really doesn’t know how to take it easy!)

Simone Vojvodin is passionate about teaching punch needle rug hooking and has been an Oxford Certified Punch Needle Instructor since 2011. She enthusiastically shares her love of punch needle through classes, workshops and demonstrations for beginner punchers to advanced. A nature and animal lover, Simone resides near Parkhill, Ontario where she has her studio, Red Maple Ruggery. Simone designs original patterns, creates hand-dyed wool and yarns, carries a full range of rug making supplies and of course punches her own rugs which she describes as 'paintings in wool'. Her rugs have been featured in exhibitions in Ontario, Vermont and Ohio, published in magazines and books, and have won multiple awards.

Amy Oxford

Amy Oxford: A Legacy in Punch Needle Rug Hooking

Amy Oxford ’s journey into punch needle rug hooking began in 1982, when she was trained as a rug hooker by McAdoo Rugs in Vermont. What started as a profession quickly evolved into a passion for the craft, and in 1985, Amy took her first steps into teaching punch needle rug making. Her students were eager to learn, but many struggled to find the materials needed to fuel their creativity. At the time, punch needle rug hooking supplies were rare, with just one specialized shop in the United States. This gap in the market inspired Amy to establish Red Clover Rugs, a shop and mail-order business that she operated for a decade, providing everything from yarn to original rug patterns.

During her time with Red Clover Rugs, Amy also became a resident artist at the Vermont State Craft Center, Frog Hollow, where she demonstrated her craft to visitors and produced commissioned pieces, including room-sized rugs and stair runners. Her entrepreneurial and creative spirit flourished, leading to the eventual development of The Oxford Company in 1995. This company brought to life Amy ’s invention, The Oxford Punch Needle, and operated out of her solar and wind-powered home in Cornwall, Vermont.

Amy ’s contributions to the craft community extended far beyond her business. She has been licensed by the Shelburne Museum to make adaptations of their antique rugs and has helped catalog the museum ’s renowned collection of over 400 historic hooked rugs. Her role in cataloging the museum's collection became a personal and professional highlight.

Over the years, Amy served in key leadership roles in various craft organizations, including the Vermont Crafts Council and the Green Mountain Rug Hooking Guild. She has also taught rug hooking across North America, sharing her knowledge and passion for the craft with schools, guilds, and private groups. Amy ’s dedication to spreading punch needle rug hooking culminated in the creation of a teacher certification program to help grow the next generation of instructors.

Coming full circle, in 2010 Oxford purchased the McAdoo Rugs pattern collection featuring over 1000 fabulous rug designs. She is the author of seven rug hooking books including the bestselling Punch Needle Rug Hooking: Your Complete Resource to Learn & Love the Craft.

Despite the challenges she faced early on—when punch needle was considered by many to be an inferior form of rug making—Amy remained steadfast in her belief in its value. Over time, she watched the craft gain respect and flourish, largely due to the dedication of artists like herself who worked tirelessly to elevate the practice.

For Amy, teaching has always been the heart of her work. What started as a reluctant favor for McAdoo Rugs—teaching a class no one else wanted to lead—quickly turned into a lifelong passion. Seeing how rug hooking transforms her students ’ lives, washing away sadness, inspiring creativity, and providing calm, has been one of the most rewarding aspects of her career.

Today, Amy Oxford ’s name is synonymous with punch needle rug hooking, and her innovative punch needle tool has become a beloved staple in the craft community. For Amy, the joy of punch needle rug hooking remains as strong as ever. She often reflects on how the repetitive, calming nature of the craft soothes her soul and allows her to create art that pleases no one but herself. In her words, "In a world that doesn ’t always make sense, there's something satisfying about being able to pull thousands of loops together...creating a certain gratifying peace of mind.”

Oxford spread her love of the craft and encouraged punchers to excel for over 40 years until her retirement in 2024 when she sold the Oxford Company to new owners.

Amy is thrilled to see the new Oxford Company thrive and to be involved in an advisory role with the title bestowed upon her: “Master Mentor.” She still loves to punch, especially with her favorite, well-worn trusty #14 fine Oxford Punch Needle that only gets better with age.

In her words “Punch on!”