Things [ Hand Made ]

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My chance to wonder about hand made things and tell the world about those I make, love and cherish!

Monday 16 February 2015

Making a rag rug.

I have made a new rug for the back door. Every so often life gets such that I need a craft that doesn't require much thought.

It got a bit like that in January so out comes a piece of hessian and my favourite hook. We always have old t shirts around the house that no one quite wants or needs so it's easy to source the colour to fill the spaces I draw on the hessian.

I measured out the hessian against the spot by the back door, drew a simple design made up of geometric shapes and pin wheels, loosely based on some lovely thing I had seen at the Kaffe Fasset exhibition in Bath.

 

Slowly it grows, with colours chosen entirely by what is in the rag rug, no planning, very little thought, just trying to put pattern next to plain.
After all, it's just a back door mat, it will be filthy with the mud it's meant to catch.
Of course I could just go done to a shop and buy a new back door mat for very little, it's just a mat for the back door but it feels better to make my own, almost comforting and I will smile at the colours and the shapes whenever it catches my eye.
This tradition comes from needing to make something, to avoid expense. It recalls those hardworking families that had little and had to make the most of it.
I am not driven by cost issues but I am driven to make for its own enjoyment, the desire to make something that has cost me nothing but time.
It's hard to express.
But just at the moment my little rug expresses it perfectly.

 

4 comments:

Snippety Gibbet said...

I have always wanted to try this. Your's turned out wonderfully.

red2white said...

I know the drive. Desire to make with my own hands is probably the biggest need and why I keep making. The rug is now too good for the back door, but it's going to feel so special, you might even want to skip over it :). And strangely enough, right now I am making something very similar, just it's woven. Otherwise, the same process, just going with the flow. But now mud on it, ever! :)

Gina said...

It is beautiful and I can quite understand the desire to make rather than buy. I've never tried rag rigging but it's on the list of things to try.

angharad handmade said...

I would love to try my hand at this. Such a pretty little rug, and so much more satisfying than popping out to buy one!