Finally an Empty Loom!

Last week I had stopped weaving the 4th t-shirt rug because I wasn't sure I liked the color for the hem that I had chosen.

I pulled out several colors I had on hand and stepped back and took a picture.  I can somehow see color combinations more clearly in a picture, and it confirmed my new color choice.

I chose the last one on the right,  and while it doesn't match either the copper or the brown in the rug , it is somehow a combination of the two.  Once that choice was made I quickly wove the rest of this rug.

It is always fun to see the newest rug coming around to cover the last one.
















I could tell that I only had enough warp left to do one more rug, so I went across the hall and started pulling out colors.  I wanted use white as a contrast again, and I had fun choosing a new combination of colors.

I neglected to get a picture of this combination  in strips or on the loom, but I have one of the finished rug you will get to see further down.

I cut the rugs off and laid them out to rest before I cut them apart to hem.

Rug #1 was a striped pattern that I found in a swedish weaving book for rag rugs.   I liked it well enough but I feel that t-shirt weft doesn't look the same as regular rag weft, and I started thinking of a new way to combine my t-shirts.

Blues, Browns and Gray as the contrast color was my first combination.  I love how it looked on the loom, but I was surprised at the almost clasped weft effect that showed up once the rug was off the loom.

Then I decided to do some bright colors, red, turquoise, yellow, orange and black with white as the contrast.  Again, I really like the clasped weft effect.

Peacocks at the Museum were on my mind when I chose the colors for this rug, three browns and 2 blues.

For the 5th and final rug I went with white as the contrast color, then 2 blues, 2 reds, and a green.  I really wanted to use an orange in this one, but in the end the green won.

I have thoroughly enjoyed this warp in the Hollywood pattern in black / white and I plan to do another one very soon, though I think I will be looking for a wider loom, 28 inches is as wide as Carl Jr, (the small Cambridge rug loom) will do and I know that I would really like to use at least 30 inches in the future.

I will now turn my attention to the 8 harness loom that is ready to have it's warp threaded in the rose path pattern, more on that next week.

Until then, Happy Crafting, Tina