Wednesday, January 8, 2014

Rug Twining

5 years ago. Yes, I said FIVE. My friend Kat & I went to the Paducah Quilt show & while we were there - I bought a paperback book by Country Threads for rag rugs. Simple enough procedure I suppose. I ordered a 2 loom set from OUR OLD COUNTRY STORE. They ar such awesome people to work with. I emailed them over th holiday's & then on January 2 I got an email saying they're available for shipment. So I placed my order & 2 business days later I had my looms! Yay! One loom makes like a bathmat/welcome mat size & placemat size too if you move the stretcher up. The larger of the 2 is ..well I don't know the demensions - let me look on thier website - it makes a rug 25"X37". I got them just Monday - didn't think I would because it's sort of really bad weather here in middle TN right now. (it was actually MINUS 2 degrees yesterday!) Anyway...soon as I got it I opened the box & assembled the looms. I quickly started to warp the large one (which is the attached picture). It took more strips than I anticipated and I warped it with strips from fabric left over from quilt backs & borders. Origianlly I thought to myself that THIS type of fabric was too expensive to be using for a RUG !!! But you know what? I'm not a very good scrap user - so why not??? I had been anticipating getting a loom so I went to Goodwill & bought 5 sheets in varying blues. I washed them TWICE in hot water & then commenced to tearing them into 1.5" strips. Doing the stripping is way more slow than actually twining the rug! Seriously. I had emailed this picture to Dru @ Our Old Country Store & she pointed out that I had the whole thing put together wrong becasue the pencil rods on the sides were bowed. She was right. While I had all the letters matched up, I still had them backwards. Don't ask me how I did that, I just DID. So I took the warping off & put it all together again. And the rods were perfectly straight. Much easier to insert when everything is lined up properly. I will try to get another picture tonight when I get a few more rows twined....but you know, my sewing room is upstairs & there is no natrual light after like 2 PM & I'm not home until after 5. SOOOooooo...you're seeing the picture BEFORE I re-assembled the loom & then did some of the weft. If you have ever french braided hair? It's nearly the same thing. Very rythmic. And fast. I think if I could sit still long enough to actually DO something - I could get a whole lot done on this jobbie!

1 comment:

Mia's Cottage said...

Oh my goodness!! You never have a spare moment do you? you do a little of everything! Amazing!! You go girl!