Rug Weaving

 

 

My sister has a friend that decided she would like one of my rugs. So she decided the colors that would work in her kitchen. Better yet, she gave me the fabric to make it with. I've not done that many rugs so wasn't sure how much fabric she should give me. She has alot of fabric. In fact, she has one of those long arm quilting machines and does the quilting for me when I make quilts up in Moose Jaw in summer. So the fabric she has most of is backing for quilts. The width of the fabric is 109 inches. She sent at least a couple of yards of 3 fabrics. I folded them nicely and cut a few strips of each with my trusty Chickadee cutter. Boy, that thing slices the layers like butter!!

 

The first rug, I just took the strips and wove them one at a time, without a shuttle, just laying them in as I pleased, keeping track of how many of each I did so I could flip the progression for the second half of the rug. That worked nicely but was rather slow!!

So I emailed her to tell her that I had the rug done, what should I do with the rest of the fabric? She said to keep it and use it somewhere in my work.

 

So, I wove 2 more rugs. This time, I cut the rest of the strips and then divided them in half so I knew how many strips per rug. Then, figured out a pattern of strip progression and took them to the sewing machine to join before folding and rolling them.

 

So how do you know which roll to grab when you've got a plan and you want the rug to kind of look organized, not scrappy? Well, I had figured out how to roll them to make that work, plus, I pinned the ends of the roll to keep them together. The first roll I planned to use had one pin in it, the second had two, third three pins, etc. Cool idea, don't you think?! Easy too.

 Normally when I weave rugs or placemats with a thicker weft, I grab my ski shuttles. I love those shuttles because, for me, they work the best. However, this weft was wider than would fit nicely on those ski shuttles so the rag rug shuttle it is! This is a nice one I got at a weaving conference several years ago, actually MidWest up in the UP of Michigan. It's a good one to use as well. I may buy another one next time I go to a conference where they're at! It slides nicely across the warp.

With the 3 rugs done, I've got enough warp for about 4 more. The rest I'll weave using selvedges I bought in Iowa a couple of years ago. It's time to use that up, stash busting! Then instead of the other rug warp I'd like to weave, I have to get an order done. It's a big one and will take me several weeks to do. My blog will be quite  boring then but I'll have pictures to show....

I do hope that you all had a wonderful Christmas. We sure did, which is why I only have a few rugs to show this time!! We don't have family in Knoxville, but we sure have some good friends. Family time will come plus I now have my ticket to fly to Canada toward the end of January!! Yup, I'm heading up to that cold prairie again for 2 weeks!!

Tomorrow is New Years Eve. Guess what the Tuesday Weavers are planning to do? You're right, we're going to be weaving. It's too long to miss 2 weeks in a row so the plan is that whoever is free will come to weave tomorrow. It'll be interesting to see who can make it. Some weaving might get done, lots of talking and maybe even planning will happen as we figure out what our next year will be like. I know I have a student or two planning to start in February.  Should be fun!!
So, til next week, when I hope to have pictures of the rugs I wove, keep weaving!!
And, Happy New Year
Carol