Rag Rug Weaving
Weekly project at the Burritt Historic Park
This week has passed in a blur of field trip talks and rainstorms at the Burritt. Normally, I am only scheduled to work a couple days per week, but this week consisted of four days total—the first two for field trips and the last two for my regular work as historic interpreter to visitors. The South has been hammered over the last few weeks with strong storms (some of which produced tornados), and this week was no exception. Regardless of the rain, students and visitors still made their way to the mountain and business was as usual—just a bit more waterlogged.
Since wool loves moisture in the air (and feels gross when you’re trying to work with it), I decided to weave a rag rug on the rug loom that the Burritt keeps on standby. Volunteers had cut fabric strips (by the looks of it, over a decade ago), so half of the work was already done. I just had to warp the loom, cut slits in each end of the fabric strips to join them, and then weave the rug using a twining technique that I have practiced before but never done a full project with. Since it was too dark inside the house to weave, I set up the loom on the Chandler House porch to catch the breezes during the day.
I wove for much of the day on Wednesday and Thursday in between talking with visitors, and I finished my first rag rug right after mid day on Thursday. I started each end of the rug with wool and corduroy strips first, but soon ran out, so I had to finish the middle of the rug with cotton strips (which caused it to pull in). It’s nice and thick to stand on and it’ll give my feet some padding when I’m weaving on the floor loom.
Since many of the other rag rugs are worn out at the Burritt, I can see many more rugs being woven in my immediate future. It was a fun change from traditional hand loom weaving and it gave me a chance to learn some new skills too.
Hurray! As someone who has stood on those worn rugs when demonstrating, I am more than excited to have you weave and replace them!