Rug Warp Done

I finished weaving the last part of the rug warp. Instead of weaving one or two more rugs I wove material to make tote bags. I am going to start making tote bags along with my rugs. I have asked a few people to save plastic bags for me. I figured that would be a good thing to make bags out of plastic bags. Why do I have visions of me digging through the recycle bins at store to retrieve more plastic bags? I wish that I could get my hands on some Sendick's bags from Milwaukee. They are red and very heavy. My next warp will be black and grey. All of the white bags that I have will go well with that, so with Kohl's grey bags.

While this may not have all of the creativity that I crave I must weave to sell. I am going to make it fun at least. Some of them i will line and put pockets in. Maybe I will find some cool material for the lining. There are some beautiful batiks out there.

How to weave a rag rug

Most of the rugs that I weave are woven with byproducts of the textile industry. I do weave some out of material that I cut. I like the look of Madras plaid after it is woven into a rug.

These are the steps that I take in weaving a rug:

First I wash the material. Here is what it looks like before I start cutting:

Then I cut one end off at a 45 degree angle so that I can make a large bias tube out of the material. I take the selvedges of the material and line them up. Since one end of the material was cut at an angle you have to pull one end up. You can see the end of the material is now a bias.

I sew the selvedges together with a straight stitch.

I take the piece that I cut off of the end and sew on the opposite end so that I have a complete bias tube. (Sorry, no picture)

A bias tube of this length would be too hard to handle in the rag cutter so I cut it into sections of about 30" each.

Then I take each section and feed it into the rag cutter, this makes things go very quickly. You do have to be careful to not allow the material that is under the rag cutter from getting cut.

After I finish cutting a bias section I have enough to fill one of my rag shuttles. Coming off of the rag cutter you will have a nice little pile like this:
and yes, I do realize that I need to vacuum.

Here is the rug that I am working on with a piece of the original material:I made this warp to be used with several different wefts. I do wish that with this filler I had left the natural warp out.

Good Day

I had a very productive day. I finished the green wool rug that I started last night, turns out that I did have enough "worms" for it. I cut all of the plaid material that I started cutting last night. I think that i have figured out the best way to do that on the new cutting table. Then I wove two rugs out of that plaid material. They turned out better than I had thought that they would. I checked the filing cabinet, there are some that will work out well with this blue/green/cream warp, and some that I think will work better with a grey/black warp. I had planned to put a 10/2 black perle warp on next and weave up the batik butterfly material that I have stockpiled. People really like black and white clothing. However I think that I am going to put a black/grey warp on next for more rugs. The rugs are selling well so I should stick with that. I probably won't put on as long a warp as I did with the current warp. I do want to get to that batik material.

Progress

I am back from the vacation from Hell, almost over my pneumonia and back to weaving. I have so many ideas and need to organize them. I want to get a lot done be Ann Arbor. That is generally my big goal for the year, have the booth filled for Ann Arbor.

I wove some rugs out of "by products from the textile industry." I sold two of them this past weekend. I am weaving more. I thought that I had more of the forest green "worms" from Pendelton. I am hoping that I have enough to weave a rug. If not I am going to weave them singularly and not doubled. I might be able to do a twill weave that way. I opened the big case of wool scraps that I have. I was not aware that there was fringe on these pieces. I did some test cutting, I am going to have to sew the ends together before I cut, the pieces are just not long enough the way that they are. I think that I will take four pieces, trim the fringe, then sew ends together by lapping them. then just cut and hope that I have guessed correctly. I am cutting them at about 1" wide. I will see if this has to go plain weave or if I will be able to do a twill weave.

We toured the Crafts Center at Berea, KY. There were some beautiful things there. A man wove rag tote bags. He made the handles out of the weft. As near as I can figure he would leave about 6 ends out, braid them then weave those six ends back into the body. These handles were not going to go anywhere. I had decided that I wanted to weave some tote bags, I think that i will be sewing my handles on unless I suddenly figure out how he did this.

I also finally figured out what I am going to do with the sari silk that didn't work out. I am going to put on a 5/2 black perle cotton warp and weave some bags out of the sari silk. I can put those really cool buttons on that I bought from Terri.

OK, lots of plans, now how much will I actually get done before the next show?