The Diagonally Woven Rag-Rug

A diagonally woven T-shirt rag rug. I came up with that idea one evening and decided to see if it would work. Well, it did!

. . .but not without a few hiccups. I came up with the idea and started putting the T-shirt loops on my loom. Approximately 20 loops later my loom was misshapen. Oops? About a quarter of the way through weaving the rug, my loom broke. Yeah, oops. Apparently my loom wasn't built for diagonally woven rugs. 

My dad fixed the loom and I got back to weaving, and really hoping the rug would turn out well (and fearing it wouldn't). A couple weeks later (yes, this one took forever compared to my previous rugs), it was done! 

I'm happy to report that I really, really like it! It was worth making! 

One thing about this rug that surprised me, once I got it off of the loom, was the size. It's several inches bigger on each side than other, standard-ly woven, rugs I made on this loom! Now why is that? Well, the diagonally woven rug has twice as many loops in it as the as the standard rug does. It has 80 loops running diagonally one way, and 80 running diagonally the other way. The standard rugs have 40 running up and down and 40 running left to right. Thus this diagonal rug is very tightly woven, so it didn't shrink down as much as the others when I took it off the loom. No wonder this rug took me so long to make!

As I was making this rug I didn't pay much attention to what color loops I was using. I was more concerned with having enough loops of the correct sizes, than of a specific color. Thus, I was very pleased once the rug was off the loom to see that the color combination didn't look horrible! 

For my next diagonally woven rug (which is already on the loom) I've figured out another way to make the loops. Color coordinated diagonal rug, here I come! I've also thought through how to make this next rug with only 80 total loops rather than 160, so I'm really looking forward to seeing how it turns out!

Now, ignoring the colors, Which rug style do you like best? The standard rug or the diagonally woven rug? Let me know in the comments!

Rag Rugs, Potholder Style

This winter my family got really into making potholders. You know, the ones you weave from cotton loops on little metal looms? We made a lot of them! Most of the extended family got a set for Christmas.

Once we ran out of cotton loops I got a little creative and cut up some holey knee socks to make more potholders. That worked surprisingly well!

At some point during this whole potholder making frenzy I began to think, "Hey, wouldn't it be cool to make a ragrug this way?" I would just need a really big loom and really big loops. For the loops I went to the thrift store and picked up approximately twenty 50 cent T-shirts.

Using my rotary cutter and mat I cut the t-shirts into 4 inch wide loops.

I sorted them according to color.

Then, they all had to be stretched out, in order to fit on my yet-to-be-built loom.

My siblings were very helpful with this. After an evening of cutting and stretching loops, I was all ready to weave my rug.

So, one night I volunteered to cook supper and my dad built a loom for me. 

Weaving the rug actually took much less time then expected! In one evening I had a rug done!

This was fun! So the next week, armed with more T-shirts, I made a second one. This time with a pretty plaid design.

Excited about how this was going I decided to make a third rug, only this time with a twist. I would weave this rug diagonally.

Unfortunantly my loom wasn't built to be used like this and the top bored split. EEK! Daddy to the rescue!

My dad reinforced the loom for me! Now, if only my goats will take a break from going into labor for several hours I can get this rug done! (then ask my dad to build me another, stronger, loom) 

Now, how many other ways can I weave a rag rug? Anyone have a bunch of old T-shirts to give me? Alright, back outside now to check on all my pregnant goats and new babies. Check back later this week for a full report on kidding season thus far!