At the Wool Festival, there was a display of rag and proddy rugs. These were popular from Victorian times as a way of using up rags and scraps, recycling old clothing and fabric into something useful. Even when I was a child, most working class homes had a rag rug. It's still a popular craft. Such rugs can be made from a variety of materials but old T-shirt jersey is a common one; the little cut pieces are soft and don't easily fray. The rugs are made by prodding fabric from the back to the front of a piece of hessian, using tools like those in the middle above. An alternative technique is to use a hooked tool to pull the fabric piece through the hessian from the front.
The skill lies in choosing the colours and patterns. Simple shapes, like the squares above, are the most effective. The artwork below, more complicated, would best be used as a wall-hanging rather than a rug, I think.
The flowery rug is definitely beautiful enough to be hung on a wall, and more practical there than something on the floor to walk on :-)
ReplyDeleteIt's a useful skill, and I remember sets bought at the toy shop when I was a child in the 1970s, the sets containing all the material needed to create a cushion cover or small wall hanging. My sister made several during those years, as presents for our grandparents.