sweetgeorgia

Handwoven Rug

I’ve been quite infatuated with Peter Collingwood for a while now. Maybe it’s that he left medicine to be a weaver. Maybe it’s that he wrote the bible on rug weaving. No idea. Or maybe it’s just that fiercely beating a weft into submission is pretty darn enjoyable.

This rag rug was woven on the 45″ Leclerc countermarche loom at Place des Arts. The warp is 132 ends of plain ol’ white cotton butcher string and the weft is old jeans ripped or cut into 1/2″ strips. Sometimes, I cut the jeans with sewing scissors… other times, I got tired and started ripping the cloth… and other times, I used a fancy Olfa rotary cutter. There were a couple different colours of denim and they all blended together and created a bit of a mottled result. I wove for about one yard and cut the rug off the loom, finishing the ends on a sewing machine.

It’s such a good feeling. Save your denim. Recycle something. Get a workout. All at the same time!

I think it took only about three short sessions of weaving at Place des Arts to weave this up. At times, I think the loud banging from the loom as each shot was whacked into place frightened the other students in the class. I heard someone whisper, “Felicia Lo. She can beat the snot out of you.”