First Friday: Variations on the "braided" rug

It's a good thing these First Fridays come once a month, because it forces me to get my butt in gear and  finish projects that I start.  I have actually finished a lot of projects, but I give them away as gifts, forget to take pictures and/or don't want to write about them until after the recipient receives them.

How many of us grew up in a home that had at least one braided rug?  When settling down in my own home, I started pricing these out and they are not cheap. I was fortunate to inherit two large rugs from my parents as well as a smaller one.

When I was faced with 35+ pounds of wool roving last year, I was trying to think of ways to use the stuff up quickly!  Spinning all of it would take forever (and indeed, it is a slow process...a 100 yard skein of yarn is about 3 oz--you do the math).  Mother K from my spinning group had actually crocheted a "braided" rug out of roving and it was beautiful, and used a lot of roving!  I am no expert crocheter but I know how to make a simple chain.  So I set about making a rug for a wedding gift for my brother and now sister-in-law.    It turned out well, and after a washing, felted a little bit to make it hold together more.  Unfortunately, I have no pictures. To get the shape for an oval rug, you increase on the ends every 5 loops.

Another method that I have discovered involves making i-cords (shown above).  Again, this is not technically a "braided" rug, but it has the same type of appearance.  Another spinning group member showed her finished project last month.  This method does require the use of spun yarn, so it doesn't use as much wool as the previous method.  However, it is a great way to use old yarn left-overs, particularly if you are not too concerned about colors.  Since we moved the inherited braided rug from our bedroom to the kitchen, we only have bare floor to place our feet upon in the morning. There is no way I will be able to construct a 8x10 oval rug with this method, but I can construct two smaller rugs.

There are plenty of videos on the web for how to make i-cords.  Below are two different methods (if you don't have double pointed needles, you don't want to use the first method).

 

 The second method can be done with regular needles.  On every row, you want to knit the 1st, 3rd, and 5th stitches and slip the 2nd, 4th, and 6th stitches onto the other needle as if you were going to purl.   The video below demonstrates.

Once you have your i-cords, you simply have to stitch them together with carpet thread. 

 

I'm in the middle of stitching this round rug that I made with homespun yarn. As you can see, it is slow progress (hence the wine). 

 

I wanted to make a more oval shaped rug for my bedroom. Just from trial and error, it seems you have to be very exaggerated in the shape of your oval when you start.  The brown and white round rug actually started out more oval-ish, but I only started with about four inches of straight cord before I turned the first corner.  In the purple and gray one, I have a 12-inch straight cord before I turned the cord.  This rug will be made up of various scraps of yarn I have lying around (some of it, like the purple is homespun and dyed (with Kool-Aid!), alternating between lighter and darker shades. 

So happy rug making.  Hopefully, by April's First Friday I will have an update on the finished products!

First Fridays

Many cities and towns across the country have a First Friday celebration where local shops stay open later in the evening, allowing for folks to mingle with the artists and craftspeople and to hopefully buy some of the artists' fine work.  I never have enough "stuff" to sell at farmers' markets or even at a cooperative artists' guild (of which there are two in my area), but to inspire readers, I will be posting a new useful, crafty thing every first Friday.

This month's topic is the feed-bag-converted-into-grocery-bag.  There are several websites which outline this process.  One can be found here and the other is found here.  But if you google "recycling feed bags into grocery bags" a gazillion and one sites pop up.  Who knew?  I first learned about this at my spinning group where a 4H leader was doing this with her group.  I saw the finished bags in the 4H pavillion at the County Fair and they turned out really well.

Anyway, you do not have to be an expert sewer to do this.  I honestly do not get along with my sewing machine.  We have a very fragile truce which lets me do simple things (like make curtains).  Anything more complex, including quilting, and it balks (or I balk). I don't know anything about the specific types of stitches  or thread I should have used, but I did change to a size 18 or 19 needle (the largest, green one) because I was working with this feed bag material.

 So, my starting piece was a chicken feed bag that had looked something like this (okay, it looked exactly like this except that there was no feed in it).   

The finished product, after consulting the websites linked above, and spending about 45 minutes with the machine, looked like this:

 

For those of you who are expert seamstresses, I did not have a ruler or other measuring tool with me at any point during the making of this--it was all sort of eye-balled.  Also, the seams are by no means even or pretty-looking (which is why you don't get a close-up shot).

The bag hasn't really been tested yet aside from putting a couple jars of pickles, and a half gallon container of milk in it (those were the heavy things in my fridge), but I think it will do okay when I take it to the Farmers' Market tomorrow.

I'm thinking these would make great gifts (except for the price of the thread, and the electricity used by the sewing machine, they're free) especially if they are filled up with other crafty or homemade goodies.  

Happy sewing and TGIF!