About fourteen years ago, I took a weekend rug weaving class from Jason Collingwood.I kept my woven sample and class notes, but never made a rug.
I would like to show in this post some of the things I learned and had to relearn from this class. There are techniques I could have done better and others that made me happy that I still remembered.
I used a wool area rug in my living room for inspiration. The dark green, navy, dark red and natural colors go well together.
One of the first things I learned was to not use waxed linen for the warp. I had a terrible time tying it onto the front rod. It was almost impossible to get the knots to stay tied. An 8/5 linen works well at 6 ends per inch. They should be doubled and put in the reed at 3 doubled ends per inch.
Jason Collingwood does not recommend the lashing method for starting a rug, but I think I will try it anyway for the next one to see if I can keep an overhand knot tied tightly.
I started the rug with some heavy unwaxed linen to get the warp spaced correctly and to give me a tiny bit of weaving for my temple to grip. It is recommended to use the temple almost from the first pick of weft, even if only a couple teeth grip the rug.
It is essential to get a straight edge before starting the rug. The weft tends to run downhill on each edge, so it is necessary to compensate for that by weaving small triangles at each edge, as seen right before the red twining starts.
I started the rug with a twined row of red linen, followed by a second row of natural linen twined in the opposite direction. The ends need to be within the row and not at the edge. It may take using a large needle to maneuver the threads. The tan ends in the photo are overlapped and left hanging until more weaving is completed.
Wool yarn was chosen. I used several strands, with the number depending on the thickness. Another thing learned: It may take a little experimenting to get the same thickness with each grouping. The woven rug thickness is about 1/4” or slightly more. The thickness didn’t end up consistent, so I will have to pay better attention to the number of strands used for each color.
Something to consider when choosing yarn is how many strands to use. The more that are used, the more hand threading individual ends into the rug will need to be done. I will show the method further on.
These are some of the shuttles I used. The long ones and the ski shuttles are good for full width weaving and the short ones worked well on the center diamond, where I was making short passes.
Starting a new color of yarn is not done like weaving with finer yarn and a closer sett. With several strands woven together, the thickness needs to be staggered. Leave about six to eight inches of tail at the edge. Pull half of the threads out between different warp threads and take the other half around the selvedge threads twice, as shown in the photo. The wrap at the selvedge prevents a gap from forming at the edge. Bring the edge ends into the shed and stagger them between the other tails.
Arch the weft. It may take some trial and error to get the right amount of extra yarn in the shed to prevent the edges from pulling in. Your temple will help maintain an even width.
Bubble the weft evenly before beating. With the beater brought forward, change to the next shed and beat again.
It will take quite a few woven rows before the weft will stay tightly in place.
Once the weft stays packed down, each one of the ends needs to be woven into the rug. I use a heavy packing needle with a curved end. The needle is threaded down in the channel made by the doubled warp threads next to the tail. An inch or a little more is enough. Thread the end and pull it into the channel.
This needs to be done after the weft is packed and before it rolls over the breast beam.
Once a group of ends has been threaded into the channels, pull the beater forward and hold tightly while tugging gently on each thread.
Release the beater and then trim off each thread at the surface of the rug.
My photo shows some looks that can be created with plain weave. The simplest is a solid color stripe. Vertical stripes are woven with two colors alternating. Checks are just a variation of vertical stripes. Weaving two rows of the dark color will change the placement of the dark and light check block.
Cross stripes can be quite attractive and vary by how many passes are made before changing colors. In this stripe, the narrow rows are two passes and the center darker stripe is four passes.
Note that this stripe is close to the beginning of the rug, so the needle is threaded away from me. Once I had a couple inches woven, I threaded the ends toward me.
The photo shows what the packing needle looks like. With the hook facing up, the eye goes side to side. If it is difficult to thread the needle eye, a thin plastic floss threaded loop works well.
This post has become quite long, so I am ending with the photo of the rug off the loom.
I will make another post soon about a better way to change colors, especially in the checked areas in order to eliminate the bulge at the selvedge and keep the height of the stripe even.
I also want to show how to do the diamond and a few things I learned while weaving it.
Until then, enjoy your own pursuits.
