A Feat of Fancy: Double-Faced Woven Braided Rag Rug

I found another box of rag balls way back in my closet the other day. When I opened the box and revealed all the colors, prints, and various sizes of these balls I was a bit overwhelmed. There is something so beautiful and compelling about them, and I could feel something stirring inside me, a recognition of the time spent by the grandmothers of old to not waste anything. The cutting apart of all the old 'housedresses', which they had probably made in the first place, in order to either weave into rag rugs themselves or take them to a neighbor with a loom, seemed daunting to me, though I doubt to them. I could envision them sitting in the evening with sissors, needle and thread, and piles of old clothing, patiently snipping and sewing. These balls represent hours and hours of work. I felt I needed to honor and use them and I felt inspired.

When I gave Iris her first 'baby' doll (organic by the way), I made a tiny baby doll for her baby doll and recently I decided to make a couple more of them.

and then I thought of braiding some of these rags into a small 'basket' for one of these dolls. That led me to braid a couple more baskets. In the braiding, which is a wonderful, rhythmic, medatative exercise, I wondered about braiding strips and weaving them into a rug... might this be something interesting? Certainly it would honor the grandmothers. So, upon finishing the third basket, I decided to venture into braiding strips to weave.

And here I am 'at the end of my rope'. After cutting 5-6 yard lengths and braiding them, I cut three equally long strips for the underside...or the double face, of the rug. I used a different rag ball for every braided strip. Trying to braid lengths of 5-6 yards is no easy feat, especially when the rags have trailing threads that entangled all over the place.

This tangled knot is a result that happened all too often while braiding. Each length of braid took about 15 minutes to braid and made five to six shots across the rug, there were 160 shots (far more than I thought) in the final rug, (the last of this warp seemed unending) so I spent a minimum of 8 hours just in the braiding.

This is the side of the rug with no braiding, but with three shots of rag strips from the same ball as the braided side. To say I love the look of this rug is hardly adequate...I think the grandmothers shine through making it somewhat translucent in nature.

This is the braided side of the rug, and it seems so 'deep' that one can simply fall into it.