Ready for the Holidays

A few months ago we received a request for a custom woven piece - our first commissioned work. Pretty heady stuff for a rag-tag bunch of museum volunteers. Our charter was to create a table runner for a rustic dining room table that was 103 inches long, plus some overhang & fringe. 

It came off the loom last week, we tied the fringe this morning and TaDa - it's done and ready for Thanksgiving (our target was for Christmas). 

A combination of two fabrics gave us nice cranberry reds with a hint of mint. 

Neck Tie Rug Finished....

....about 3 months ago (bad blogger).

Anyway, the rug is wonderful and a topic of conversation around the museum (even made a guest appearance at the local Rotary Club meeting).

Silk Tie Rag Rug

Owen's neckties are all skinned out and strung up like so many animal pelts ready to be dried, sold to the fur buyer and fashioned into a fur coat. (That is the single most similar experience I can conjure up from my six decades of doing strange things.) Bear skin rugs, I've seen, but making a rag rug out of silk ties - that's different.

And, it's going to be unique rug, too.

As we started working with the ties, it became obvious that the wonderful Polyester ties of old just are not working - way too stiff and bulky (at least compared to the luxurious silk). So, our bundle of tie/rag critter pelts is now reduced by nearly half. Since we're getting a little less than one inch of rug per tie, it's going to be a pretty short rug unless we set our traps and catch some more ties. I think they might be nesting down at the goodwill store. ;-)

Warp On!

The Ideal loom is warped, with a little help from my friends. Of course, Elliott stops by just as we're finishing up...

There was a suggestion, after seeing how great the newly warped loom looked, that we just leave it alone, forget about weaving Owen's silly necktie rug - put the loom on display as artful museum decor.

It is pretty, but weave we must.

Dr. Jim kept tension on the warp threads as we wound them on. Being a horse person, it looks like he may have had some experience driving a carriage with 4-in hand.

Don't you just love the way the red & black play together.

And, for my next trick...

One of the regulars at the Museum has an extensive collection of old neck ties that he would like woven into a "rag" rug (seems like making a sows ear out of a silk purse to me, but whatever). After mulling this over for several months now I decided that the unusual nature of the raw materials, required unusual warp materials and weaving techniques.

Red and black pearle cotton is being threaded so that it can be woven with a "log cabin" technique - one side of the rug will be predominately red, the other side black - a reversible rug with as much sheen on the warp as the ties it's made of.

Off to the Gift Shop

All finished and looking for a new home. We had a good crew of Museum Quality Weavers last week - fringes tied off, hand-woven labels sewn on.... But wait, there's more!

Bitter End (of a warp) - Home Sweet Home: Rugs 25 & 26

It appears that we have come to the end of our warp or in nautical terms to the bitter end. But it has been a sweet run for this warp. We wound on approximately 25 yds of warp last September and have been rewarded with seven months of weaving and eleven "museum quality" cotton rag rugs - most of which have already been sold in the museum gift shop (at least three of them were sold before they could get that far). Not a bad investment donated materials and volunteer labor.

Here's a look at Rugs 25 & 26. Plus (learning from history) we were able to squeeze a couple more placemats out before we really hit the bitter end. Sweet!

With a little help from our friends, these will have "hand woven" labels sewed on and be For Sale in the gift by the end of the week.

But wait, there's more....

The big roll out of the previous post gave you a first look at Rugs 22, 23 and 24.

On the same morning, we rolled out a great set of placemats and a matching table runner.

Teal Rugs #20 & 21

The solid teal fabric was so effective (and plentiful) that we did a d0-over with the second multicolored warp on the Ideal loom. It's a total winner - wish we had another 50 or so yds of this fabric....

Oops, Just for the record - Rugs 18 & 19

Not to be overlooked are a couple of multicolored beauties that came off the loom shortly after #17.

The Big Roll Out (22, 23 & 24)

First look at the latest new rugs!

Labels make the difference

Rug #17 is officially finished now and ready for sale at the Museum Gift Shop.

Many thanks to Tracy for the great labels.

Also finished and for sale is our latest placemat and table runner set - cool colors for lunch on the screened porch or patio. Spring is indeed almost here - overnight lows in the 40's and the daffodils are getting restless.

Fresh off the loom - Rug #17

I've been trying to think of or "see" our museum rag rugs in new ways. This end view catches my fancy - slightly abstracted - bulbous, like the balls of rags we started with.

A somewhat more traditional view shows four stripes of simpatico coloration and equal width in a regular rotation - quite a nice rug altogether. The photo doesn't do justice to the visual depth created by the "wave" of warm to cool colors - standing on the rug, you might perceive a ~ one - two inch trough between the warm and cool areas of the rug.

very cool rug

Latest Ideal Rugs

Two new rugs for the Museum Gift Shop. We've been getting behind in our rug inventory, may need to go to a double shift to keep up with demand. How great is that!

Ideal Warp2-Rug2

Moving right along - we've started working on the second rug on our new (2nd) warp on the Ideal Loom. I think it's going to be quite respectable.

And a news flash! (roll the drums....) We just g0t a request to create a custom table runner - our first "commissioned" piece at the Museum! Who'd a thought.

An Ideal Warp

Yeah! We finally got the Ideal loom at the County Museum dressed up with a new warp. This is the first of many rag rugs we will be able to weave on this warp. As you look at the dates of previous posts, it becomes obvious that this (378 thread) warp took us a while. But, when you consider we are only working at it about 3 hours a week (almost every Thursday morning).... hey, we're having fun - fun shouldn't be rushed. And, we did wind on about 25 yards of warp, so we'll be able to weave rugs for about a year or so before we need to do this again. That's a lot of fun.

On another front, it's been pointed out to me that I've been a slacker-blogger and haven't been keeping (significant) others informed about the myriad of (potentially) interesting things that I've been doing in the interim. I am compelled and inspired to do better for all concerned.

Time to get Warped!

This is an exciting time at the County Museum! We are all set up and ready to wind a new sectional warp on our newly donated Ideal Loom (circa 1930). Everyone was so taken by the multicolored warp that had been on the loom when donated that we decided to honor the donor and reproduce that warp as closely as possible with the materials at hand. The original warp had featured primary and secondary colors - we opted for a more Autumnal pallet by substituting a brown and salmon-orange for the red and blue.

There is something about the geometry, symmetry and repeating motifs of all my weaving toys that just wags my tail.

This sequence (section) will be repeated 14 times across the width of the warp.

The Big Reveal

Yesterday was a big day at the Museum, we revealed nine completed pieces for all to see. There were two rugs and two placemats on the Ideal Loom and a set of placemats and a table runner on the old loom.

I thought it was pretty cleaver of us to squeeze two placemats out of the remnants of the multicolor warp.

Fred is inspecting the placemats to make sure they are all the same size - look closely - yep, two inches short of the mark. Hey it's a child size placemat - that kind of thoughtful design touch would cost more anywhere else.

Pleasing Placemats

It's fascinating to see the colors of a large print fabric meld together.

Touch of Color

It's amazing what little color does for your warp.