Someone has to cut the 'rags'.

RAGS! RAGS!! RAGS!!!
My new weaving love.

The pair of scissors pictured above were my mother's. She gave them considerable use making costumes for dance class all through my youth. I gave them even more use when I first started weaving rugs. I cut the strips for my rugs with these scissors, and believe me, cutting strips by hand is not an easy task.


This is the very first rug I ever wove, though tattered, still in use. It is woven from an old chenille bedspread, and I recall that I started at one end, and continuously cut it round and round until it was one really long, long strip. I used nothing but scissors for the next hundreds of rugs, knowing no different. It was perhaps even more crueling than warping, which is hard enough.



Then I was introduced to the rotary cutter with the cutting board! Ah, what a wonderful device this was. It cut my cutting time by more than half, and it sure saved my hands and wrists. I wasn't always able to cut entirely precise straight strips, but it was a God-send. I was eternally thankful to those quilters who introduced me to this device.

For some years I had been reading about rag cutters. These are devices that rug weavers use to cut their rags, and I believed that they cut only cotton or light weight rags. After looking at them in catalogs for years, I finally contacted a manufacturer and asked about cutting wool blanket ends with this cutter. I was told it would handle the wool quite well. It wasn't all that inexpensive, especially for someone who doesn't make $$ at weaving, but I invested anyway.


And I believe that this is the single most wonderful weaving event that has happened to me since I have been weaving. I LOVE THIS RAG CUTTER! Honestly, this has transformed my weaving life, and sometimes I just want to sit and do nothing but cut 'rags'.


And this is the last rug to come off my loom, strips cut, of course, with my rag cutter!