Wool Rug and Mini Rag Rug

THE RUGBEE RUG

My basket buddy, Teresa, and I were teaching basket weaving class at Silver Dollar City in Branson, Missouri, in 2000, when I happened upon a lady demonstrating making wool rugs.  She told the crowd that her grandmother had someone make the special crochet needle with a small hook on one end and a tappered blunt point at the other end.  It is ~8" long  Then she started creating lovely oval or square rugs.  

 

Wool strips, 1/2" to 5/8" wide, are cut and can be any length, from as small as 1" to as long as a yard.  There is no wool wasted when making this type of rug.  The width of your strips determine the thickness of the rug.  Woven wool has to be cut on the bias to prevent unraveling. I had this navy blue and red check wool from a box of fabric/notions that my grandmother gave me.

Once the strips are cut, you load the needle by pushing through the middle of the strip onto the needle with a 1/2" space between folds.  When you come to the end of one strip, you begin another strip, as if it was one continuous strip .  It is not necessary to sew these strips together because as you begin to crochet the rug they will stay in place.

Using carpet warp,  you begin to crochet between the loops, then pull off one fold, crochet, pull off a fold and repeat around the rug.  When you get to the curve part, you pull off two folds to increase the size of the rug.  This keeps it from rolling up and allows it to lay flat.    







The folds lay close together and this is the depth of the rug.  While I was watching that first demonstration, if there was a strip a bit taller that the rest, the lady took her scissors and trimmed it to be even.  I was amazed!




You can see when I separate the folds, the crotchet part is well hid.




I added a few extra colors of green and gold here and there and added a strip of black to break it up.  Notice how small the extra green and gold are.  This was my first rug and I didn't know how big it was going to be so I thought that adding extra colors would help make it a decent size.

This rug has a dreamy, fuzzy look to it and is soft to stand on.  If I had to do it over, I would not have added the extra color wool.  It was kind of hard to guess what the rug was going to look like.  From a distance it doesn't look too bad.  The size is 1.5'x2.5', not very big, but that was all the navy/red wool I had.

You can make chair cushions with this technique, rugs and hot pads to use in the kitchen.  The size depends on how much wool you have and what you are making.


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BUTTERCUP IS MAD!

When Buttercup found out that I made a small rug for Sherri's doll house, she would not talk to me. 

All she has for a rug is a worn out doily!

So I went to work on a colorful area rug for her.  I choose matching colors of her furniture that had some dynamic patterns to them.

 

I wove it on my small metal pot holder loom.  It matches well 

and she can place it anywhere in her 'room'.

Buttercup is soooo happy, she jumping on the bed!

(sorry for the blurry pictures.  Not sure what went wrong there.  Must be operator error!)

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 Thanks for visiting,
Cinder

Rag Rug and Wolf Cross Stritch

RED AND BROWN RUG

 

I made this rug for my granddaughter's mother.  She just said that she wanted reds and browns, so this is what I found in my stash pile!  

It is hard for me to tell exactly what each rug will look like due to the mix of colors and the print design until I get a few inches into it.    And that's if I didn't run out of fabric, which I did on the red/white check, yikes!!!  So had to modify my pattern and end with more browns in the middle.

When she saw it on the frame, she thought the colors were just perfect.  Whew!  I was a bit worried as I thought maybe the browns were too light in color.  

Now I'm on to my next rug:  a wool one with thin strips of navy, brown, grey and plaid wool left over from making my braided rugs.

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CROSS STITCH

A few years back I was at Hobby Lobby and I spotted this cross stitch kit. My husband and I love to watch animal shows and we enjoy sitting on our porch watching what critters we can: birds, butterflies, calves...   So I bought the kit.

 Wolves in the moon light!  I was amazed how the birch trees came to life with different color threads.  Sometimes I had to mix two colors together.  And their fur...Wow.  It took me quite a while to finish.  I have a hard time working with black fabric or thread and this was a challenge.  I would shine the light behind me and I had a piece of white fabric on my lap.  When the light shone thru the small holes in the cross stitch fabric, I could make out where my needle would go.

 The eyes were really fun to do!  It looks like they are looking right at you - scary.  It measures 15" by 12" and I put it in a nice rustic frame.

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Thanks for visiting,

Cinder

 

Rag Rug Tutorial

RAG RUG

The rug measures 23" by 36".  There are 23 nails at both ends of the frame to wrap the weavers around and 2 rods along the side to keep the sides of the rug straight without causing it to pull in making an hourglass shape.
  

BASE WEAVERS
The first step is to cut strips for the base weavers.  I cut mine 1 inch wide.  You can use cloth, thick string, anything that is washable and will hold up.  It will take about 45 yards.  I wrapped them around the nails loosely.  This allows me room to weave.  The beginning and end of the weavers are tied to the first/last strips to secure it.  

STRIPS
I then took time to cut all my other weavers to have them ready so I could continue weaving without having to stop and cut.  It also allowed me to make sure that I have enough strips and a good variety.

 

 The strips are 1 1/2" wide and are connected by joining each together without sewing.

JOINING STRIPS
 First you make a slit in each end. 

 
Then you thread the top end of the orange strip through the slit in the blue strip.

 Next the bottom end of the orange strip is then threaded thru the slit in the top end of the orange strip.  Pull tight.  This holds the two together without seams, so no sitting at the sewing machine for hours joining them together.




I connect several strips together to make 2 long ones, then join them to the end of the strips that are already woven.  If I get them too long then it's bulky to weave because I have to pull the whole strip behind each base weaver. 

 TWINING
The weaving is called twining.  The black strip in the above picture, is crossed over and wrapped behind the base weaver (red).

 Then the yellow strip crosses on top of the black and weaves around the next red base weaver.

This is repeated back and forth.   In no time you have a rug!  Hope this made sense.

I love the mixed bag of color this rug has.

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Hope your holiday shopping is going well.  I tend to do mine early and only for the little ones.


Thanks for visiting

Cinder

Rag Rugs

RAG RUG

This is my first rug from the frame that I got from Missouri Town.  I used a brown fabric and added some colors that blended well.  

 

 It got a bit wavy, especially in the middle, but I'm hoping that it will work itself out.

  I wove it pretty tight so it was a bit hard to get out of the frame.

 
The rug fabrics are also the same that I used on my table runner.

 It looks good on the floor.

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 AND THEN MY SECOND RUG...

This one I wove looser and used random bits of fabric. 

It lays nice and I really like the multi color look.  It took me a few days to cut the fabric and 6 days to weave.  Do you think I'm a bit obsessive when I'm working on a new project?  This pretty rug goes to my sister. 

Thanks for visiting,

Cinder