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HOW TO MAKE RUGS
[Illustration: LOOM WARPED FOR WEAVING]
How to Make Rugs
_By_
CANDACE WHEELER
Author of "Principles of Home Decoration," etc.
ILLUSTRATED
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
1908
Copyright, 1900
By CANDACE WHEELER
Copyright, 1902
By DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & CO.
Published October, 1902
CONTENTS
FOREWORD: HOME INDUSTRIES AND DOMESTIC MANUFACTURES.
CHAPTER
I. RUG WEAVING. 19
II. THE PATTERN. 33
III. DYEING. 45
IV. INGRAIN CARPET RUGS. 57
V. WOVEN RAG PORTIERES. 67
VI. WOOLEN RUGS. 79
VII. COTTON RUGS. 99
VIII. LINSEY WOOLSEY. 113
NEIGHBOURHOOD INDUSTRIES: AFTER WORD. 125
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Loom Warped for Weaving _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
Weaving 20
The Onteora Rug 36
The Lois Rug 52
Sewed Fringe for Woven Portiere 72
Knotted Warp Fringe for Woven Table-cover 72
Isle La Motte Rug 90
Greek Border in Red and Black 108
Braided and Knotted Fringe 108
Diamond Border in Red and Black 108
The Lucy Rug 128
FOREWORD.
HOME INDUSTRIES AND DOMESTIC MANUFACTURES.
The subject of Home Industries is beginning to attract the attention
of those who are interested in political economy and the general
welfare of the country, and thoughtful people are asking themselves
why, in all the length and breadth of America, there are no
well-established and prosperous domestic manufactures.
We have no articles of use or luxury made in _homes_ which are objects
of commercial interchange or sources of family profit. To this general
statement there are but few exceptions, and curiously enough these
are, for the most part, in the work of our native Indians.
A stranger in America, wishing--after the manner of travelers--to
carry back something characteristic of the country, generally buys
what we call "Indian curiosities"--moccasins, baskets, feather-work,
and the one admirable and well-established product of Indian
manufacture, the Navajo blanket. But these hardly represent the mass
of our people.
We may add to the list of Indian industries, lace making, which is
being successfully taught at some of the reservations, but as it is
not as yet even a self-supporting industry, the above-named
"curiosities" and the Navajo blanket stand alone as characteristic
hand-work produced by native races; while from our own, or that of the
co-existent Afro-American, we have nothing to show in the way of true
domestic manufactures.
When we contrast this want of production with the immense home product
of Europe, Asia, parts of Africa, and South America--and even certain
islands of the Southern Seas--we cannot help feeling a sort of dismay
at the contrast; and it is only by a careful study of the conditions
which have made the difference that we become reassured. It is, in
fact, our very prosperity, the exceptionally favourable circumstances
which are a part of farming life in this country, which has hitherto
diverted efforts into other channels.
These conditions did not exist during the early days of America, and
we know that while there was little commercial exchange of home
commodities, many of the arts which are used to such profitable
purpose abroad existed in this country and served greatly to modify
home expenses and increase home comforts. To account for the cessation
of these household industries, it is only necessary to notice the
drift of certain periods in the short history of America's settlement
and development.
We shall see that the decline of domestic manufactures in New England
and the Middle States was coincident with two rapidly increasing
movements, one of which was the opening and settlement of the great
West, and the other the establishment of cotton and woolen mills
throughout the country.
In short, the abundant acreage of Western lands, fertile beyond the
dreams of New England or Old World tillers, threw the entire business
of production or family support upon the man. The profit of his easily
acquired farm land was so great and certain that it became almost a
reproach to him to have his womenkind busy themselves with other than
necessary household duties.
The cotton and woolen mills stood ready to supply the needed material
for clothing, and it was positive economy to push the spinning-wheel
out of sight under the garret eaves and chop up the bulky loom for
firewood. The wife and daughters might reputably cook and clean for
the men whose business it was to cover the black acres with golden
wheat, but spinning and weaving were decidedly unfashionable
occupations. Even the emigrants from countries where the spinning and
weaving habit was an inheritance as well as a necessity, were governed
by the custom of the country, and devoted the entire energy of the
family to the raising of crops.
It is, in fact, owing to fortunate circumstances that, if we except
the mountain regions of the South, there are no longer farmhouse or
domestic manufactures in America.
This, as I have said, only goes to prove the hitherto unexampled
prosperity of the country. In fact, the absence of these very
industries means that there are greater sources of profit within the
reach of farming households.
This being so, it is natural to ask, why the re-establishment of
farmhouse manufactures, or the encouragement and development of them,
is a desirable movement.
There are exceedingly good individual and personal reasons; and there
are also commercial and national ones, which should not be ignored.
All farmers are not successful. There are many poor as well as rich
ones; and the wife of a poor farmer has less pecuniary independence,
less money to spend, and fewer ways of gaining it, than any other
woman of equal education and character in America.
A poor farmer is often obliged to pay out for labour, fencing, stock,
insurance and taxes every dollar gained by the sale of his crops, and
if by good luck or good management there should be a small excess, he
is apt to hoard it against unlooked-for emergencies. This, at first
enforced economy, grows to be the habit of his life, so that even if
he becomes well-to-do, or even rich, he distrusts exceedingly the
wisdom of any expenditure save his own.
A mechanic, or a man in any small line of business, must trust his
wife with the disbursement of a certain part of the family income. It
passes through her hands in the way of housekeeping, and the
management of it exercises and develops her faculties; but the wife of
the farmer has no such interest. The farm is expected to supply the
family living, and this blessed fact becomes almost a curse when it
deprives the wife of the mental stimulus incident to the management of
resources.
Added to this there is often, at least through the winter, partial or
complete isolation from neighbourly or public interests. The great
crops of the country are produced under circumstances which
necessitate distance from even the most limited social centres, and
that the farmer's wife suffers from this we know, not only from
observation, but from the statistics of insane asylums. And here I am
tempted to quote from a letter of a close student of farmhouse life in
the West. She writes:
"That the farmer himself, as isolated and hard worked, makes no such
record, I believe due to the mental tonic, the broadening influence
that comes from a sense of responsibility in life's larger affairs.
The woman works like a machine, irresponsible as to final results; the
man like a thinking, planning, responsible, independent human being."
This seems to me a very fair statement of the case. The woman, who
misses social companionship, and who has not the saving influence of
administration and responsibility even in her own household, is
narrowed to a very small point in life's affairs, and it is inevitable
that she should suffer from it. The variety of her work also has
dwindled. Cooking and house-cleaning follow each other in monotonous
routine, with too much of it at planting and harvest seasons and too
little at others. She has not even the pleasure of comparison and
emulation in her daily work; it neither exercises her faculties nor
stimulates her thought.
During the winter months she has abundant leisure for a harvest of her
own, in some interesting manufacture adapted to her education and
circumstances, and in the prosecution of these she would be brought
into a bond of common interest with other women. So far I have spoken
only of the individual and personal reasons for which certain domestic
and artistic industries well might be encouraged; but the public and
economic reasons are easy to find.
In looking at the variety and bulk of our national imports, we may be
surprised to see how large a proportion of them are of domestic
origin. In fact, nearly everything which comes under the head of
artistic products is the result of domestic industry. The beauty and
simplicity of many of these things is surprising, and yet they have
required neither unusual talent or careful training. They are simply
the result of the _habit_ of production, and their value is in the
personal expression we find in them. They have always this advantage
over mechanical manufacture, and can be safely relied upon to find a
market in the face of close mechanical imitation.
Among these domestic products we shall find the laces of all
countries, Ireland, Belgium, France, Italy, Sweden and Russia
contributing this beautiful manufacture, from finest to coarsest
quality. It is as common a process as knitting in the homes of many
countries, and the fact of it being successfully taught in the Indian
cabins of the far West proves that it is not a difficult
accomplishment. Embroideries, in all countries but our own, are common
and profitable home productions; and when we come to hand-weavings the
variety is infinite. In practical England, the value of hand-weavings
in linens has led to the introduction of small "parlour looms" from
Sweden; and damasks of special designs are woven for special customers
who appreciate their charm and worth.
Of all hand processes, weaving is the most generally or widely
applicable, and the range of beautiful production possible to the
simplest weaving is almost beyond calculation.
Many of the costly Eastern rugs are as simply woven as a Navajo
blanket, or even a rag carpet. The process is in many cases almost
identical, the variation being only in closeness or fineness of warp
and arrangement of colour.
I have been much interested of late in an application of art to a
local industry in New Hampshire. It is one which seems to prevail to
a greater or less degree all through New England, and the product is
called "pulled rugs." The process consists of drawing finely cut rags
through some loose, strong cloth, mainly bagging or burlap. I have
seen these rugs at Bar Harbor and along the Massachusetts coast for
many years, and while they possessed the merit of durability, they
were, for the most part, so ugly and unattractive that only the most
sympathetic personal interest in the maker would induce one to
purchase them. The change that has been wrought in this manufacture by
an intelligent application of art is really marvelous. The product
came under the attention of a woman trained in that valuable school,
"The Institute of Artist Artisans." She tried the experiment of using
new material carefully dyed to follow certain Oriental designs, and
the result is a smooth, velvety, thick-piled rug, which cannot be
distinguished from a fine Oriental rug of the same pattern. The cost
of this manufacture is necessarily considerable, since the process is
slow and the material costly. But in spite of these disadvantages, the
drawn rugs have met with deserved favour, and are a source of
profitable labour to the community. It is undoubtedly the beginning of
an important industry, which owes its success entirely to the art
education of one woman.
There is an improvement somewhat akin to this in the weaving of
rag-carpet rugs, and this is not confined to one locality. It consists
in the use of _new_ rags, carefully selected as to colour both of rags
and warp, and the result is surprisingly good.
One might say that we have in this country peculiar advantages for
positive artistic excellence as well as volume of production. We grow
our own wool and cotton. We have a great and growing population, with
such application of mechanical invention to routine and necessary work
as greatly to reduce household labour. Added to this, there has been
during the last ten years so much and such general art study as to
have created a sort of diffused love of art manufactures, so that many
of the people who would naturally adopt the work would have an
instructive judgment regarding it. I should not be afraid to predict
great and even peculiar excellence in any domestic manufacture which
became the habit of any given locality.
_The subject of our domestic industries is one which should fall
naturally within the objects of women's clubs._ If every woman's club
in the country chose from its members those who by artistic instinct
or education, and the possession of practical ability, were fitted to
lead in the work, and made of them a committee on home industries, the
reports from it would soon become a matter of absorbing interest to
the club, and the productions made under the protection, so to speak,
of the club, would have an advantage that any commercial business
would consider invaluable. Neither would the advantage be limited by
the interest of a single club. That great social engine, "The
Federation of Women's Clubs," can wield an almost magical power in the
creation of interests or encouragement of effort, and the federation
of organizations, each one exchanging experiences as well as products,
would be an ideal means of growth and extension.
The machinery for the work exists in almost every county of every
State of the Union, and with the threefold interest of the promotion
of practical art, that of increased manufacture, and the extension of
that sisterhood which is one of the most Christian-like and desirable
aims of women's clubs, it would seem a natural and congenial effort.
The best results of this general awakening will probably be in the
South. Certainly no conditions could be more favourable than those
existing in the Cumberland Mountains, where wool and cotton grown upon
the rough farms are habitually spun and woven and dyed in the home
cabin. The dyes are often made from walnut bark, pokeberry, and
certain nuts and roots which have been found capable of "fast" stain
and are easily procured. Unfortunately, the facility with which
aniline dyes can be used is not unknown. The "linsey woolsey," which
is not only a common manufacture in the farmhouses, but the common
wear of both men and women, is an interesting and good manufacture,
capable of much wider use than it enjoys at present.
And linsey woolsey is not the only home weaving done in the Cumberland
Mountains. The showing of cotton homespun towel weaving at the
Atlanta Exposition was a feature of the Exposition, and the homespun
blankets of the various kinds which one finds in common use are only a
step removed from the process of the admirable Navajo blanket.
We see from these different possibilities and indications, that
although we are still a people without true home productions, there is
every reason to believe that this condition will not be a lasting one,
and that before many years we shall find the special advantages and
general cultivation of the country have not only produced but given
character to a large domestic manufacture.
CHAPTER I.
RUG WEAVING.
Rag carpets have been made and used in farmhouses for many
generations, but it is only of late that there has been a general
demand in all country houses for home-made piazza rugs, bedroom rugs,
and rugs for general use.
It has been found that the best and most durable rugs for these
purposes, and for bath-rooms for town and city houses, can be made of
cotton or woolen rags sewed and woven in the regular old-fashioned
rag-carpet way, the difference being--and it is rather a large
difference--that the rags must be new instead of old, and that the
colors must be good and carefully chosen instead of being used
indiscriminately, and in addition to this it must be woven in two-yard
lengths, with a border and fringe at either end. This being done,
good, attractive and salable rugs can be made of almost any color, and
suitable for many purposes. It is an industry perfectly adapted to
farmhouse conditions, and if well followed out would make a regular
income for the women of the family.
The cumbrous old wooden loom is still doing a certain amount of work
in nearly every country neighbourhood, and it is capable of a greatly
enlarged and much more profitable practice. I find very little if any
difference in the rugs woven upon these and the modern steel loom. It
is true that the work is lighter and weaving goes faster upon the
latter, and where a person or family makes an occupation of weaving it
is probably better to have the latest improvements; but it is possible
to begin and to make a success of rag rug weaving upon an
old-fashioned loom, and as a rule old-fashioned weavers have little to
learn in new methods.
This small book is intended as a help in adapting their work to modern
demands, as well as to open a new field to the farmer's family during
the winter months, when their time is not necessarily occupied with
growing and securing crops.
[Illustration: WEAVING]
It does not undertake to teach any one who buys or has inherited a
loom to begin weaving without any further preparation. The warping or
threading of it must be _seen_ to be understood, but when that is once
learned, all of the rest is a matter of practice and experiment, and
is really no more difficult than any other domestic art. One would not
expect to spin without being shown how to pull the wool and turn the
wheel at the same time, or even to sew or knit without some sort of
instruction, and the same is true of weaving.
There are many old looms still to be found in the garrets of
farmhouses, and where one has been inherited it is best to begin
learning to weave upon it instead of substituting a new one, since the
same knowledge answers for both. Probably some older member of the
family, or at least some old neighbour, will be able to teach the new
beginner how to set up the loom and to proceed from that to actual
weaving. After this is learned it rests with one's self to become a
good weaver, a practical dyer, and to put colors together which are
both harmonious and effective.
What I have chiefly tried to show is how to get proper materials and
how to use them to the best advantage. I think it is safe to say that
no domestic art is capable of such important results from a pecuniary
point of view, or so important an extension in the direction of
practical art. Where it is used as an art-process and an interesting
occupation, by women of leisure, it is capable of the finest results,
and there is no reason why these results should not become a matter of
business profit.
Rag carpets have generally been woven of rags cut from any old
garments cast aside by the household--coats and trousers too old for
patching, sheets and pillow-cases too tender to use, calico, serge,
bits of woolen stuffs old and new, went into the carpet basket, to be
cut or torn into strips, sewed indiscriminately together, and rolled
into balls until there should be enough of them for the work of the
loom. When this time came the loom would be warped with white cotton
or purple yarn, dyed with "sugar paper" or logwood, and the carpet
woven. Even with this entire carelessness as to any other result than
that of a useful floor covering, the rag carpet, with its "hit or
miss" mixture, was not a bad thing; and a very small degree of
attention has served to give it a respectable place in domestic
manufactures. But it is capable of being carried much farther; in
fact, I know of no process which can so easily be made to produce
really good and beautiful results as rag carpet weaving.
The first material needed is what are called carpet warps, and these
can be purchased in different weights and sizes and more or less
reliable colours in every country store, this fact alone showing the
prevalence of home weaving, since the yarns are not--at least to my
knowledge--used for any other purpose.
The cost of warp, dyed or undyed, depends upon the quantity required,
or, in other words, upon its being purchased at wholesale or retail.
At retail it costs twenty cents per pound, and at wholesale sixteen.
To buy of a wholesale dealer one must be able to order at least a
hundred pounds, and as this would weave but a hundred and fifty rugs
it would not be too large a quantity to have on hand for even a
moderate amount of weaving. These prices refer only to ordinary cotton
warps, and not to fine "silk finish," to linen, or even to silk ones,
each of which has its special use and price.
In all of them fast colour is a most desirable quality, and, indeed,
for truly good work a necessity. I have found but two of the colours
which are upon ordinary sale to be reasonably fast, and those are a
very deep red and the ordinary orange. The latter will run when dipped
in water; in fact, it will give out dye to such good purpose that I
have sometimes used the water in which it has been steeped to dye
cotton rags, as it gives a very good and quite fast lemon yellow.
It follows, then, that in weaving rugs (which must be washable) with
orange warp, the warp must be steeped in warm water before using. It
can be used in that state, or it can be _set_ with alum, or it can be
dipped in a thin indigo dye and made into a good and fast green.
The only recourse of the domestic weaver who wishes to establish her
rugs as of the very best make is to dye her own warps; and this is not
only an easy but a most interesting process; so much so, in fact, that
I am tempted to enlarge upon it as a practical study for the young
people of the family. It is necessary at the very beginning to put
much stress upon the value of fast colour in the warping yarn, since a
faded warp will entirely neutralize the colour of the rags, and spoil
the beauty of the most successful rug.
The most necessary and widely applicable colour needed in warps, or,
indeed, in rags, is a perfectly fast blue in different depths, and
this can only be secured by indigo. Aniline blue in cotton is never
sun-fast and rarely will stand washing, but a good indigo blue will
neither run or fade, and is therefore precisely what is needed for
domestic manufacture. Fortunately, the dye-tub has been, in the past
at least, a close companion of the loom, and most old-fashioned
farmers' wives know how to use it. With this one can command reliable
blue warps of all shades; and when we come to directions for making
washable rugs its importance will be seen.
As I have said, by dipping orange warp in medium indigo blue a fast
and vivid green can be secured, and these two tints, together with
orange and red, give as many colours as one needs for rug weaving;
they give, in fact, a choice of five colours--orange, red, blue,
green and white. Orange and red are both colours which can be relied
upon when prepared from the ordinary "Magic" dyes of commerce. Turkey
red especially is safe to last, even when applied to cotton. In the
general disapproval of mineral dyes, this one may certainly be
excepted, as well as the crimson red known as "cardinal," which is
both durable and beautiful, in silk or woolen fibre or texture.
After good warps are secured, the second material needed is _filling_;
and here the subject of old and new rags is to be considered. Of
course, cloth which has served other purposes, as in sheets,
pillow-cases, curtains, dress skirts, etc., is still capable of
prolonged wear when the thin parts are removed and those which are
fairly strong are folded and bunched into carpet filling; and for
family use, or limited sale, such rags--dyed in some colour--are
really desirable. Good varieties of washable rugs can be made of
half-worn cotton without dyeing (although they will not be as durable
as if made from unworn muslin) by using blue warps to white fillings.
The colour effects and methods of weaving will be the same whether
old or new rags are used; but in making a study of rag rug weaving
from the point of view of building up an important industry, it is
necessary to consider only the use of new rags and how to procure the
best of them at the cheapest rates.
There is a certain amount of what is called waste in all cloth mills,
either cotton, wool or silk, and also in the manufacture of every kind
of clothing. The waste from cotton mills, consisting for the most part
of "piece ends," imperfect beginnings or endings, which must be torn
off when the piece is made up, are exactly suitable for carpet
weaving; and, in fact, if made for the purpose could hardly be better.
These can be bought for from ten to twelve cents per pound. The same
price holds for ginghams and for coloured cottons of various sorts.
Cutting from shirt-making and clothing establishments are not as good.
In shirt cuttings the cloth varies a good deal in thickness, and, in
addition to this disadvantage, cannot be torn into strips, many of the
pieces being bias, and therefore having to be cut. It is true that
while this entails additional use of time in preparation, bias rags
are a more elastic filling than straight ones, and if uniformly and
carefully cut and sewed a rug made from them is worth more and will
probably sell for more than one made of straight rags.
Shirt cuttings sell for about three cents per pound, and while a
proportion of them are too small for use and would have to be re-sold
for paper rags, the cost of material for cotton rugs would still be
very trifling. Suitable woolen rags from the mills sell for
twenty-five cents per pound. Tailors' and dressmakers' cuttings are
much cheaper, and very advantageous arrangements can be made with
large establishments if one is prepared to take all they have to
offer.
One difficulty with woolen rags from tailoring establishments is in
the sombreness of the colours; but much can be done by judicious
sorting and sewing of the rags, for it is astonishing how bits of
every conceivable colour will melt together when brought into a mixed
mass; also if they are woven upon a red warp the effect is brightened.
Having secured materials of different kinds, the next step is in the
cutting and sewing, and here also new methods must step in.
The old-fashioned way of sewing carpet rags--that is, simply _tacking_
them together with a large needle and coarse thread--will not answer
at all in this new development of rug making. The filling must be
smooth, without lumps or rag ends, and the joinings absolutely fast
and fairly inconspicuous. Some of the new rags from cotton or woolen
mills come in pieces from a quarter to a half-yard in length and the
usual width of the cloth. These can be sewed together on the sewing
machine, lapping and basting them before sewing. They should lap from
a quarter to a half inch and have two sewings, one at either edge of
the lap. If sewed in this way they can afterward be torn into strips,
using the scissors to cut across seams. It can be performed very
speedily when one is accustomed to it, and is absolutely secure, so
that no rag ends can ever be seen in the finished weaving.
If the cloth pieces which are to be used for rags are not wide enough
to sew on the sewing machine, they should be lapped and sewed by hand
in the same way, unless they happen to have selvedge ends, in which
case they should by all means be strongly overhanded. This makes the
best possible joining, as it is no thicker than the rest of the rag
filling, and consequently gives an even surface. Good sewing is the
first step toward making good and workmanlike rugs.
Whenever the rags can be torn instead of cut, it is preferable, as it
secures uniform width. The width, of course, must vary according to
the quality of cloth and weight desired in the rug. A certain weight
is necessary to make it lie smoothly, as a light rug will not stay in
place on the floor. In ordinary cotton cloth an inch wide strip is not
too heavy and will pinch into the required space. If, however, a
door-hanging or lounge-cover is being woven, the rags may be made half
that width.