Verna Cox is a grandmother with a cause.

Cox, 61, of Verona Island, is one of the nation’s preeminent makers of braided rugs. She wants to increase the activity’s popularity and improve the skills of those already braiding so the hobby will gain respect as an art form.

“I’m going to fight for quality braiding,” she said.

Cox, mother of four and grandmother of five, speaks from a position of authority. One of her rugs once hung in the Smithsonian, and another is still on display in the Maine room of the National 4-H building in Washington, D.C. Her first instructional book, “Hearthside Color Plans,” sold out, and her “Braided Rug Manual,” in its fifth reprinting, is used by teachers across the country.

She’s now seeking new mediums for her message. Two publishing houses have expressed interest in a full-color book on rug braiding. Also, she and her son-in-law, Rick Davis, are putting together an instructional video. With that, she plans to approach PBS about a TV series.

“I’m hoping to help them to see color and understand color,” Cox said. “Color should come first.”

Cox realizes that her opinions go against the traditional use of braided rugs. In the old days, she explained, women would collect old clothes, cut them into strips, and braid a rug that would be a hodgepodge of colors.

“They didn’t fuss with color or technique,” she said. “They just wanted a rug to cover the floor.”

This “rag rug” mentality has lasted until this day, Cox added.

“Braided rugs have never been elevated from the rag-rug level,” she said. “One may be used to enhance a room, but not to draw attention to itself. But the rug should be the focus by itself.”

Cox developed her strong opinions over 35 years of braiding. Growing up in Fort Kent, she loved the homeyness of log cabins and braided rugs. After marrying her husband, Ken, and moving to Orono, she decided in 1954 to learn how to braid rugs.

Using trial and error, she made three rugs. Then she and three other women got together, in hopes of improving their techniques. But the instructional books they could find weren’t much help.

“There was nothing out there,” Cox said. “What was on the market was books of color photos, without any instructions.”

So Cox learned through experimentation. This helped her develop the first technique to make perfectly square rugs. She’s also the only craftsman who does dual braiding, which uses different colors on opposite sides of the rug, making the rug completely reversible.

Cox invented and patented the Braid-View, an open-ended box with mirrors inside. When a swatch of the rug pattern is inserted, the mirrors’ reflections show how the finished rug would look.

After her craft-show debut in the mid-’50s, Cox began her career of teaching about and selling braided rugs. Her works were featured in a 1973 issue of Woman’s Day, and she and Ken decided they needed a business location.

They settled on a 1797 Colonial home and historic site in Belfast, which they called Hearthside. It started as a showcase for Cox’s rugs, but later it expanded into a co-op including other artists, located in the barn and other outer buildings.

These days, Cox makes her talent evident in the rooms of her 1-year-old Verona Island home. Depending on its size and complexity, a rug can take Cox from one to six weeks to finish. Her all-wool creations are seamless, appearing to be of one multicolored strand held together by magic. Yet she keeps her artwork on the floor, constantly trampled over by her young grandchildren.

Her rugs are crafted of new wool from mills. That may be ending soon, as she and her husband are raising two sheep and four lambs. The wool from those, combined with the spinning wheel in Cox’s living room, may well keep her supplied in the future, she said.

Cox encourages her students to start small.

“I have them braid and rebraid, to get them to create habit and consistency,” she said. “People should practice on a small rug first and put their mistakes into that. Also they should create some kind of pattern, and make little tiny braids of it, to see how it looks in a room.”

With her square rugs, diamond-shaped rugs, even clover-shaped rugs, Cox continues to push the limits of braiding, and hopes to inspire others to do so as well.

“I have to prove to them that if you learn how to do a craft, then you can use your creativity and make anything you want,” she said.