THE PATTERN.
When proper warp and filling are secured, experimental weaving may
begin. If the loom is an old-fashioned wooden one, it will weave only
in yard widths, and this yard width takes four hundred and fifty
threads of warp. Warping the loom is really the only difficult or
troublesome part of plain weaving, and therefore it is best to put in
as long a warp as one is likely to use in one colour. One and a half
pounds of cotton rags will make one yard of weaving.
The simplest trial will be the weaving of white filling, either old or
new, with a warp of medium indigo blue. Of course each warp must be
long enough to weave several rugs; and the first one, to make the
experiment as simple as possible, should be of white rags alone upon a
blue warp. There must be an allowance of five inches of warp for
fringe before the weaving is begun, and ten inches at the end of the
rug to make a fringe for both first and second rugs. Sometimes the
warp is set in groups of three, with a corresponding interval between,
and this--if the tension is firm and the rags soft--gives a sort of
honeycomb effect which is very good.
The grouping of the warp is especially desirable in one-coloured rugs,
as it gives a variation of surface which is really attractive.
When woven, the rug should measure three feet by six, without the
fringe. This is to be knotted, allowing six threads to a knot. This
kind of bath-rug--which is the simplest thing possible in
weaving--will be found to be truly valuable, both for use and effect.
If the filling is sufficiently heavy, and especially if it is made of
half-worn rags, it will be soft to the feet, and can be as easily
washed as a white counterpane; in fact, it can be thrown on the grass
in a heavy shower and allowed to wash and bleach itself.
Several variations can be made upon this blue warp in the way of
borders and color-splashes by using any indigo-dyed material mixed
with the white rags. Cheap blue ginghams, "domestics" or half-worn and
somewhat faded blue denims will be of the right depth of color, but as
a rule new denim is of too dark a blue to introduce with pure white
filling.
The illustration called "The Onteora Rug" is made by using a
proportion of a half-pound of blue rags to the two and a half of white
required to make up the three pounds of cotton filling required in a
six-foot rug. This half-pound of blue should be distributed through
the rug in three portions, and the two and a half pounds of white also
into three, so as to insure an equal share of blue to every third of
the rug. After this division is made it is quite immaterial how it
goes together. The blue rags may be long, short or medium, and the
effect is almost certain to be equally good.
The side border in "The Lois Rug," which is made upon the same blue
warp, is separately woven, and afterward added to the plain white rug
with blue ends, but an irregular side border can easily be made by
sewing the rags in lengths of a half-yard, alternating the blue and
white, and keeping the white rags in the centre of the rug while
weaving.
These three or four variations of style in what we may call washable
rugs are almost equally good where red warp is used, substituting
Turkey red rags with the white filling instead of blue. An orange warp
can be used for an orange and white rug, mixing the white filling with
ordinary orange cotton cloth.
The effect may be reversed by using a white warp with a red, blue or
yellow filling, making the borders and splashes with white. One of the
best experiments in plain weaving I have seen is a red rug of the
"Lois" style, using white warp and mixed white and green gingham rags
for the borders, while the body of the rug is in shaded red rags.
This, however, brings us to the question of color in fillings, which
must be treated separately.
[Illustration: THE ONTEORA RUG]
Of course, variations of all kinds can be made in washable rugs. Light
and dark blue rags can be used in large proportion with white ones to
make a "hit or miss," and where a darker rug is considered better for
household use it can be made entirely of dark and light blue on a
white warp; the same thing can be done in reds, yellows and greens.
Brown can be used with good effect mixed with orange, using orange
warp; or orange, green and brown will make a good combination on a
white warp. In almost every variety of rug except where blue warp is
used a red stripe in the border will be found an improvement.
A very close, evenly distributed red warp, with white filling, will
make a pink rug good enough and pretty enough for the daintiest
bedroom. If it is begun and finished with a half-inch of the same warp
used as filling, it makes a sort of border; and this, with the red
fringe, completes what every one will acknowledge is an exceptionally
good piece of floor furnishing.
In using woolen rags, which are apt to be much darker in colour than
cotton, a white, red or yellow warp is more apt to be effective than
either a green or a blue; in fact, it is quite safe to say that light
filling should go with dark warp and dark filling with light or white.
There is an extremely good style of rag rug made at Isle Lamotte, in
Vermont, where very dark blue or green woolen rags are woven upon a
white warp, with a design of arrows in white at regular intervals at
the sides. This design is made by turning back the filling at a given
point and introducing a piece of white filling, which in turn is
turned back when the length needed for the design is woven and another
dark one introduced, each one to be turned back at the necessary place
and taken up in the next row. Of course, while the design is in
progress one must use several pieces of filling in each row of
weaving.
The black border can only be made by introducing a large number of
short pieces of the contrasting colour which is to be used in the
design and tacking them in place as the weaving proceeds. Of course,
in this case thin cloth should be used for the colour-blocks, as
otherwise the doubling of texture would make an uneven surface. If the
rug is a woolen one, not liable to be washed, this variation of color
in pattern can be cleverly made by brushing the applied color pieces
lightly with _glue_. Of course, in this case the design will show only
on the upper side of the rug. In fact, the only way to make the
design show equally on both sides is by turning back the warp, as in
the arrow design, or by actually cutting out and sewing in pieces of
colour.
By following out the device of using glue for fastening the bits of
colour which make border designs many new and very interesting effects
can be obtained, as most block and angle forms can be produced by
lines made in weaving. It is only where the rug must be constantly
subject to washing that they are not desirable. It must be remembered
that the warp threads bind them into place, after they are
glue-fastened.
Large rugs for centres of rooms can be made of woolen rags by weaving
a separate narrow border for the two sides. If the first piece is
three feet wide by eight in length, and a foot-wide border is added at
the sides, it will make a rug five feet wide by eight feet long; or if
two eight-foot lengths are sewn together, with a foot-wide border, it
will make an eight-by-eight centre rug. The border should be of black
or very dark coloured filling. In making a bordered rug, two dark ends
must be woven on the central length of the rug--that is, one foot of
black or dark rags can be woven on each end and six feet of the "hit
or miss" effect in the middle. This gives a strip of eight feet long,
including two dark ends. The separate narrow width, one foot wide and
sixteen feet in length, must be added to this, eight feet on either
side. The border must be very strongly sewn in order to give the same
strength as in the rest of the rug.
The same plan can be carried out in larger rugs, by sewing breadths
together and adding a border, but they are not easily lifted, and are
apt to pull apart by their own weight. Still, the fact remains that
very excellent and handsome rugs can be made from rags, in any size
required to cover the floor of a room, by sewing the breadths and
adding borders, and if care and taste are used in the combinations as
good an effect can be secured as in a much more costly flooring.
The ultimate success of all these different methods of weaving rag
rugs depends upon the amount of beauty that can be put into them. They
possess all the necessary qualities of durability, usefulness and
inexpensiveness, but if they cannot be made beautiful other estimable
qualities will not secure the wide popularity they deserve. Durable
and beautiful colour will always make them salable, and good colour is
easily attainable if the value of it is understood.
There are two ways of compassing this necessity. One is to buy, if
possible, in piece ends and mill waste, such materials as Turkey red,
blue and green ginghams, and blue domestics and denims, as well as all
the dark colours which come in tailors' cuttings. The other and better
alternative is to buy the waste of white cotton mills and dye it. For
the best class of rugs--those which include beauty as well as
usefulness, and which will consequently bring a much larger price if
sold--it is quite worth while to buy cheap muslins and calicoes; and
as quality--that is, coarseness or fineness--is perfectly immaterial,
it is possible to buy them at from four to five cents per yard. These
goods can be torn lengthwise, which saves nearly the whole labor of
sewing them, and from eight to ten yards, according to their fineness,
will make a yard of weaving. The best textile for this is undoubtedly
unbleached muslin, even approaching the quality called "cheesecloth."
This can easily be dyed if one wishes dark instead of light colours,
and it makes a light, strong, elastic rug which is very satisfactory.
In rag carpet weaving in homesteads and farmhouses--and it is so truly
a domestic art that it is to be hoped this kind of weaving will be
confined principally to them--some one of the household should be
skilled in simple dyeing. This is very important, as better and
cheaper rugs can be made if the weaver can get what she wants in
colour by having it dyed in the house, rather than by the chance of
finding it among the rags she buys.