Table place mats.

Using Partners old blue workshirts and an assortment of fabric scraps I wove up 4 place mats for the dining table.
My original intention was to make 6, but I had problems keeping an even tension in that length of warp string and gave up after 4. Maybe later I'll do the other 2, I do still have the fabric strips ready for them.
The next project will be a rug using torn sheet as the warp threads. i went to the goodwill bin store where they sell old clothes by the pound. When I went to the register they weighed my cart and I had 66 pounds/ around 30 kilos of old bed sheets. That's going to be a lot of rugs;D

The first rug is off the new loom

Made from Flannel scraps, sheets and shirts on cotton string it measures 22"x54" (56cmx137cm). Large enough to absorb lots of mud and rain from any puppy paw that has to walk over it to get back in the house ;)
While building the loom I also built a knitting frame to use my T-shirt scraps. It makes a nice thick double knit fabric, but frankly, I'm not that impressed with the process. Hooking the preceding loops up over the new loops is tedious. It's probably easier than knitting such a large heavy piece on really long big needles but I think I'll stick to woven rag rugs.
The piece is 30"/76cm wide, which will probably end up being it's length as I think I'm just going a couple more inches and binding off. Been there, done that, moving on.

The Loom is finished, for now.

I finished the loom over the weekend. I put some pegs on the bottom of the back to use as a warping board, you have to sit on the floor to do it, but it works. there are a few things that need to be improved on, but overall it seems to work fairly well.

I started building a loom today.

It is pretty specific to rag rug weaving but is looking good so far.

More here.

Rag Rug, Part two

After getting some advice I ripped out the first rug weaving attempt and started over. The result is the one on the floor. The hanging rug is my second rug and I am now working on the third one. Between rugs number 2 and 3 I discovered what heddle bars and shed sticks are for so this one is going even faster.

I feel almost secure enough to now build a more advanced vertical floor loom. Something along the lines of this.
But a lot less expensive. I have most of the materials needed on hand in my woodshop, I just need to figure out the design of the loom based on what I have to work with.

(click on photo for enlarged view)

Question for the weavers

Partner was complaining the other day that there were not enough rag rugs to always have a clean one on hand for when the dog goes out and in. Portland is really wet in the winter.
I of course immediately began thinking on how to turn all my old fabric scraps and worn out clothes into rugs. I know almost nothing about weaving but was willing to give it a go. As my mind worked on solving problems that were occurring there I began knitting a rug from old T-shirts, (see below). I wasn't really pleased with the resulting fabric but was having problems resolving the issue of joining the strips end to end without having to stop and sew them on as I went. A single long strip sewn together beforehand seemed like a bad idea as there would then be a lot of "tail" to pull through with each pass through the loom and I didn't want to build a complicated loom. I finally stumbled on to the idea of slitting the end of each strip and then joining the kind of like joining two loops. No bulky knots!
For the loom I just took 4 boards, two of which were drilled with pilot holes every 1/2 inch and screwed those two to the other two. A double strand of string was then strung on to the frame and with the use of a bamboo "collar pointer" weaving commenced.

I'm getting an "hourglass" shape thing going on though. Should the nails be closer together? Is there a trick I need to know to avoid this situation?

Here's the knit rug start. It's old T-shirts cut in continuous spirals and wound up as "yarn" and garter stitch knit on size 11 U.S. needles.