This fall we made an unexpected road trip to Utah and stopped at the Pendleton Mill on the way home. I loaded up on Pendleton selvages! I have a friend that has woven some lovely rugs with these selvages and I also saw some beautiful ones for sale in Taos last spring.
Probably a crazy thing to do since I had never woven with them (which is true of most fibers since I'm a beginner). I bought two large bags full -- about 25 pounds. I now realize that I have enough selvages to weave a floor runner that could stretch for blocks around my neighborhood!
After staring at these big bags for a while, I realized that I could make small rugs for the boys and learn about using the selvages at the same time. First I did some research on the internet and got some good advice from the RugTalk archives and I got advice from several friends who have made these rugs.
The sett I used was 12 ends per inch, sleyed double for 6 ends per inch (per RugTalk advice).
I looked at the various small rugs around the house and picked one that I liked for a size guide -- 33 inches by 22 inches. My estimated on the loom length was 38 inches with a reed width of 25 inches.
I had a small amount of a blue/red/orange/brown selvage and was able to weave one rug with it. The second rug (using a red/blue/black/gray selvage) turned out to be a little longer because I still had some warp left when I reached 38 inches, so I kept going. On the loom it was 44 inches by 25 inches and off loom it was 41 inches by 25 inches. I washed the longer one this morning and it came out at 39 1/2 inches by 25 inches. 
I'm calling these little rugs Storytime Rugs and I'm going to send them to the boys with some storybooks.
The laprug that was suffering from negative karma is all done and ready to go out the door. I had one threading error that still showed after I washed it -- but otherwise all the negative karma is gone. I really love the texture of the Merino Angora weft...so much so that I asked Lisa Souza to dig through her bins of yarn and find any skeins that she had left (the yarn is discontinued). I was able to get another half a dozen skeins which I will use for more laprugs -- xmas presents for 2010.
On this day last year, we were here:
Happy weaving!
4 comments:
Very pretty rugs!
Those are lovely rugs. Now....you've got me interested in making some rugs. Wanna sell some of your selvages...teeheee
Thank you for your advice on threading dark warps! I will definitely try that next time.
Thanks for your thoughts on the chenille project. It's actually not worming at all with the twill pattern, but the edges are not happy. At this stage, I think I'm just going to keep weaving through as I have limited time to complete the project. I am using 100% rayon chenille - how do you wash your completed chenille projects? Thanks for all of your help!
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