Rag Rug

I have been working hard on a new rag rug, I started it at the Quilt and Craft show.  I have woven it on my peg loom and promised to post the photos as soon as it was finished. I found this craft last year while surfing on the Internet, and my thanks go to those folks who have posted videos on YouTube. I was looking for information on how to use my large collection of carrier bags and found the Peg Loom. I still have my large collection of carrier bags which I now use to store all the different colour strips of fabric I have now accumulated for my weaving.

For those of you who have not seen a Peg Loom before its just a piece of wood with holes drilled in.  Mines a dual gage as it has two rows of holes, one row is for light fabric and the other for heavy like denim.

You then have pegs - made from dowelling - with holes drilled through which you thread. as in the photo above.

Once all the pegs are threaded you place them in the holes and you are ready to start weaving. I like to use old clothes which I cut into 2inch strips -  I get the clothes from my friends and neighbours, also my daughter from time to time has a clear out. I only use clothes that cannot be worn anymore i.e ripped, grease, food, paint stains.(yes they are clean before I start cutting them up),  I have used sheep's fleece in one of my rugs you just have to put a twist in the length to give it some strength.

The rug in these pictures has been made from old summer clothes, the bottoms of my daughters trousers, an old net curtain that one of my cats decided to use for climbing practice and ended up with two lovely long rips and a bit of a loss of dignity, an old pillowcase and some silky fabric given to me at the Quilt and Craft show.

The photo above is a close up of the fabric woven on the pegs and that bit of yellow stripped fabric is a strip from the bottom of my daughters trousers.  I have just been weaving in stripes however I do not change the colour at the end of a row but just sew in a new piece when the old colour runs out.  I like to sew the ends of the strips together which makes neater join, you can knot the but I like to have neither a back or a front.  If you have knots they have to go to the back.   I do not colour co-ordinate my thread but just use whatever spare I have in the sewing basket.  Its just a rag rug , we are all going to walk over it and its to use the waste fabric/thread/wool to stop it all going into landfill.

I have used pink wool to thread the pegs as I wanted to finish the rug with pink fringing. I weave until I have run out of the colours I need or have reached the length of rug required.  And below is the finished rag rug.

This is a rug for my daughter and son-in-laws Yurt and I hope that she recognises the bits of her trousers I have used.

If you are looking for a recycling project and a craft I would recommend this one for you.If you have any questions please leave a comment and I will get back to you as soon as possible.