There might be many answers to this question. Yours may be different from the ones suggested.

Bob the Mighty Hunter

To immortalize a favorite pet. Our fur babies are parts of our families that will not travel our long life path. We still have Bob in our lives, but when he is gone this rug will comfort us.

Retirement Rug for Cotton Eyed Jo

To commemorate a career or celebrate an event. This rug was created to participate in a rug hooking challenge for one of my ebay groups. It is quite large, and I began the challenge during the last 4 months I worked as a teacher. Time to draw some simple motifs, and work an hour here and there. Quite naturally my mind turned toward my teaching career that began the summer before the first moon landing and ended in 2008.

Here is a portion of the rug. I'll provide an outside link to the entire rug with my explanations of some of the reasons the particular designs were used. It is exciting to think that although this won't end up in a museum it does serve as a primary source about the changes in teaching during my career!