These are the cottons that my sister-in-law gave me last New Years, given to her to quilt with by other quilters who didn't like them. I got my rug warp on finally yesterday and wove the first four inches and then went back to reading. I reread the book twice the book that Hilary sent me last year. Then I reread the online article I found from the Pikes Peak Weavers Guild on rag rugs. One place I read said to plan on 3-4 pounds of fabric for a woven square yard. I was worried that I wouldn't have enough fabric.I realize now my cottons are different weights and I can torment myself forever about how how wide to cut them and how long and if I can get enough tension on a rising-shed loom. I read more from the Finnish-American Rag Rug Weavers book and decided to try cutting 36" strips, pick a stripe sequence and then just lay them in. I totally hated that after the first sequence. I went to Hilary's site and studied her rugs.
I took her advice and started cutting and sewing strips. The sequence is on the ironing board. For this rug I've cut 2" strips and will fold them in half.
All the strips are cut and sew together and it was so (sew) easy to do. I was surprised at how little endorsement I read for this method. I figure Hillary does this every day, every week. You know, you can't believe everything your read~ She emailed me twice this morning with hints - great stuff, insider tips. I wish I had called her yesterday - it would have saved me a lot of angst.
So here's the first part of my rug. I am thrilled. I don't know if I'm packing well, don't know if I'm twisting the selvedges right, don't know if the colors are good. What do I know? I know that next week I'm going to be walking on my rug, and spite of myself, I am having fun with this.
I went over to Mim's this afternoon - it's our Wednes-
day semi-date. She wanted to see Sven, the fleece that Kathy went me and she loved it, all soft and lustrous.
I came home with this stack of blue jeans. They're from her gardener husband who never throws anything away. Jo Winkler was also visiting and commented that her girl scouts were making purses from jean pockets. I said - you want pockets? I can give you pockets. It turns out that the girls use the entire top of the jean to sew into purses. Nothing will be wasted here. The tops will be purses and the bottoms will be rugs. Feeling virtuous here.
Mim helped me out to the car with my mound of stuff and Bob, just home from work, asked if we were sending his jeans to sop up the oil spill. I told him no - I'm going to make a rug and I'm going to walk on your jeans. These jeans were made for walking, and that's just what they'll do.... Okay, that was really bad.
