Rugs, rugs, rugs

hand knotted prayer rug

Rugs come in many different syles from the elaborate wool prayer rug in the photo to the right to simple practical rugs make from recycled materials.

They are a favourite with hand weavers and seem simple to make at first glance.   A good rug starts with a good design, materials that will wear well and some solid weaving skills.

They need to be woven tightly, have straight solid edges, and lay flat to the floor.  Some tips for achieving a tight weave with good edges was given in the previous blog "Tips and Tricks".

Gill's rag rug with braided fringe

Rag rugs often tell a story based on the materials that become the thick weft or filler material.  Gill's rag rug with warp stripes contains the remains of  two old dresses that were too worn to wear.  Like women long ago she didn't waste the material but turned it into something useful.  Take a close look at the braided fringe, one braid per stripe.  Unfinished fringes can wear quickly but a braided fringe will withstand foot traffic better.

In the previous post you can see Gill's adventures with another traditional rug weaving technique involving knots.

Rug and towels

Linda's blue, grey and white rug is also made of rags but this time they were from old sweat shirts.  It has weft stripes that coordinate with a set of hand towels.  The hand towels are woven from 4/8 cotton with stripes of twill mixed with basket weave so the towels are adsorbent.

Pat's pillow case bath mat

The final rag rug in this series is the story of a road trip.  Pat purchased a pillowcase from thrift shops along the route.  The pillowcases were opened up and sewn together. The resulting huge piece of fabric was cut up into strips so that the colours and motifs in the indivudal pillow cases are evenly spread throughout the rug.

Doug took a different but traditional approach to weaving a rug using "Summer and Winter" as the weave structure.  This technique was used to create rugs with a light face (Summer) and a dark face (Winter) so the rugs could be turned over to match the season.  Notice the motif in the corners.  Doug used chenille in the gold rug which makes it perfect for a bath mat that you'd like to walk on in
bare feet.  Not bad for a novice weaver.

summer and winter rugs

chenille bath mat