Thursday, April 10, 2014

Weaving a Rug

I need to add "weaver" to my blog title. I have officially woven my very first rag rug on my new Norwood loom.
It was a learning piece, and did I ever learn a lot! For instance, I need to start doing some core body exercises to build my back muscles! Just dressing the loom killed my back. It is a large loom compared to the one I use for my lessons, (I've had two lessons) and everything is a reach. I now understand why I've read that weavers make the warp for more than one thing at a time a lot. It took one day to measure the warp, two days for my back to make it through dressing the loom, and a little over half a day to weave the rug. I am still trying to figure out how to finish it off. Then I will wash it.
Directions on the Internet for finishing a rag rug are not as available as weaving instructions, but I am pretty sure I know what I want to do and if it isn't right, it's OK, because it's my rug and such a great learning project. For instance. I learned I don't know how to adjust the tension, I don't think I dressed the back part of the loom right. I had a lot of skipped places where the thread didn't separate in the dent that I used double thread on, and I think that had a lot to do with the problem I had at the back of the loom.
The rug is a lot thinner than I would like but I used rag balls I had from locker hooking projects that never got done. I have enough balls of fabric for at least one more rug, and I have a bunch of batiks I cut and rolled into balls for a darker version.
As far as a first rug, and the lessons I learned, I think I did pretty good. At least it looks good from 5 to 6 feet away.

2 comments:

KimT said...

nice work!

Unknown said...

loved your license plate- have been to Wyoming and it's where I fell in love with the west while visiting our son who went to school in Laramie. we attended the rodeo in cheyanne and saw lots of the places you mentioned. this was kind of like a second trip to revisit favorites from our wonderful trip to your lovely state.. thanks for posting..