Return to rag rugs

We returned to making rag rugs on Saturday.

The last time we were busy cutting up fabric and hooking and prodding  was in the blissful heat of the summer. I think we should make rag rugs more often as it seems to make the sun shine!

I got some coffee sacks from Brick lane market this time as they are great for the hessian base in which to work your rag rug. Others also used the jute shopping bags to work into, working on hiding a certain logo, how all shopping bags should be...

Some great organised chaos...and fierce concentration, we didn't feel the time flying by.

And there was even more fabric to choose from than last time as clothes and bedsheets are not given away to charity anymore (even friends and families unwanted clothes and bedsheets...I am a magnet for this stuff), they all get recycled into fantastic rag rug creations. 

And the tools with funny names - hooky and proddy - how those words can be interpreted in so many ways.

 

It was great to see the progress on a rag rug from the last session, all that time ago... OK, it wasn't so long ago really.  

World cup fever

We continued with the rag rugs today amid the world cup frenzy. Especially for the Brazilian today, I think the rag rugging became quite therapeutic amid anxiety about the game later on. We were back in the garden amongst mounds of fabric. I recycled some t-shirts and brought these along today as this is a lovely fabric to rag rug with. The coarser fabric can be tricky to get through the hessian sometimes. 

We do seem to create a mess, but a colorful one no less...

This was the almost finished result of a bag I was working on, using both the proddy tool on the flowers and the hooky tool on the stems. A great way to jazz up an old hessian bag.

Rag-Rug mania

We decided to take a break from felting and start doing some rag rugging. This is an addictive craft, once you start it's hard to stop. I was re-introduced to the wonders of rag rugging by Megan Dowsett via the Urban Craft Club which is run by Rowan Arts. 


So on a sunny June day I descended with my trolley full of fabric, scraps that I have collected over the last six years, and we started. Everyone else brought along some other fabric to share around. You will never want to give away or throw out any clothes ever again. 

The tools we used are called a hooky - pictured above and a proddy in the picture below.

It took no-time at all before everyone got the hang of how to make a rag rug, now every bit of fabric has the potential to be turned into something else!