Rug Crafters (Santa Ana, California, USA) were primarily concerned with traditional rug hooking, but also produced some latch hook kits such as the white-on-golden-brown "Winged Unicorn" that I imported from the USA. The yarn used is "French Acrylic," which is a thick acrylic that gives a springing texture. I am very biased against pure acrylic rugs, but I had coveted this pattern for a long time.

The Rug Crafter name had been in use since October 1970 and was registered as a trademark in May 1972. The company produced hand-operated tufting tools for making tufted products, yarn and various types of kit for hooking, tufting and latch-hooking. The "Rug Crafters" trademark expired in 1994/5.

In 1975, they published the 64 page "The Art of Speed Tufting" written by their noted designer, Joseph Montell. This explained Speed Tufting "in all its simplicity" with all the inside information a person needed to create luxurious handcrafted rugs, wallhangings, miniatures and pillow covers in less time than they had ever dreamed possible. It was illustrated with black-and-white photographs and detailed descriptive drawings.

Rug Crafters held a number of patents related to rug-making: One Handed Tufting Tool (April 1974), Tufting tool for even stitching (March 1977), Loop cutting tool (June 1977), Template for yarn (February 1979), Rug and method of making the same (May 1980 - A rug comprising a rug backing and a plurality of bundles of strands. Each of the bundles is tied to the forward face of the rug backing by an individual tying element which has been sewed into the rug backing. Each of the bundles forms two clumps of pile for the rug), Method of making a rug (November 1980 - A method of making a rug comprising attaching a plurality of tying elements to a rug backing, wrapping the tying elements around central regions of bundles of strands and tying knots in the tying elements to attach the bundles of strands to the rug backing).

There were also a number of trademarks for Rug Crafters products and kits: Tuft-point (1975/6 - expired 1982), Tuft-toys (1977/8 - kits for making stuffed animals, expired 1984), Rya-Tie trademark (June 1977 - kits for making pillows, including a template, pattern, instructions, needle and yarn, expired 1984) and Earth-Line (1978/9 - expired 1985). The Rya-tie range included "Tuft N Tie" kits used a mix of short and long tufts on a stencilled hessian/burlap background (template). Other kits were "Speed Tufting" and "Easy Tuft" kits, both made on burlap. The "Rug Crafters" trademark exired in 1995.