Edith's rug all backed and ready to go to Oxford

After ironing interlining to the back of the rug I turned, pinned then tacked the edge allowance.
I pinned another piece of canvas to the back and cut it to a bit smaller than the rug.
I laid the rug out flat, wrong side up, and sprayed it with spray rubber solution glue. Then I quickly rolled out the backing piece and smoothed it across the whole back - a tense moment.
I pinned then whip-stitched tough petersham binding (sold as carpet binding) around the edge.
Then I showed the rest of the family the fruits of my three months labour and they all said, Yeah, right.
Oh well, onto the next one!

Finished Edith's rug!

A very exciting moment as I finished the hooking part of Edith's little rug. She says it looks like:
- A river of blood
- Muscle with the skin flayed
- Coral

Personally I am pleased with it and I do not think this photo really does it justice, but now I look at it from a distance I see that it is wider at one side than the other. DAMN!
I over estimated the quantity of rags needed and have a small bagful of pieces left over.
Taking the leftovers into account, this very small (81x51cm which is 32 x 20 inches in old money) rug used up:
Nearly all a tweed mini skirt
Most of a pink wool jacket - a fair bit left over
Almost a whole small (child size?) light pink tweed coat. This light pink tweed is a lovely texture but in this photo looks like white lines.
A hank of unspun, dyed wool
A bit of knitting yarn which I hooked 3 pieces at a time - still nearly a whole ball of it left
About 2/3 of an orange knit sweater - this caused me a lot of trouble, it was too fat to pull through the hessian holes and also looks set to fray like nobody's business
Nearly all of an orange, fine woven scarf - rather slippy and a bit too fine, I hooked two strips at a time
Some of a red wool coat.
The next job is to trim the back, and find some binding to use when glueing a backing piece to it.

More progress

Last night I began that area in the middle. I'm getting anxious about making my colours spread evenly across the piece...so I sorted them all into roughly equal sized piles and stored the different bundles in ten carrier bags. None of this helps my sitting room to look any more elegant.

This rug Now involves eight different elements: six "rags" (i.e. recycled textiles) and two yarns - an unspun dyed merino wool and a commercial slub knitting yarn which I realised provided a bit of no-fuss variety where needed.

Edith's rug, second day

My plan is to use the red rays as guidelines, filling in the gaps inbetween with a hearty variety of pinks and oranges.
I don't like the dayglo orange. But here's the thing: the joy of rag rugs - this type, at any rate - is that if you don't like a colour after you have started using it, you just pull it out and put in a different one. Fortunately I acquired a nice sludgy autumnal orange and a very clear orange - both woollen cloth - which more than amply replace the dayglo orange (taken from a cheap sweater).
This rug is already acquiring a very organic feel to it, despite the fact that the fabrics used for it are from not particularly organic sources such as Marks and Spencer, Next, Primark and Alberto Ferreti (Edith's favourite skirt...now that she is coming out of her illness, thankfully it does not fit her any more so we can say GOODBYE to it.

Edith's rug

My first hooked rug is for Edith. She wants it in red, pinks and oranges. She also wanted some purple but I've vetoed that. I think it will be quite garish enough.
I started by hammering a nail into the carpet in the living room, tying a piece of twine to it and using this as a "compass" to draw radiating lines across the canvas which was spread out a few inches away.
Then with my rotary cutter, ruler and self-healing board ("You aren't making scratches in our table, are you?" says husband) I cut lots of strips from a red wool coat of Aggie's which she never liked. Using a round 25cm embroidery frame I hooked a ray pattern in red and plan to fill it in with pinks and oranges.

Starting my first hooked rug

Jenni's advice is to NOT mix fabric types (wool/cotton) when doing a floor rug. As I only plan to do floor rugs I'm taking this advice to heart.

Jenni Stuart Anderson's rag rug course

Over the summer I became a bit disheartened with my toothbrush rug. It is a slow business and creates a lot of dust. I signed up for a rag rug course with Jenni Stuart Anderson at Hackney City Farm. Ten of us sat in a barn made of straw bales and learned how to prod and hook. I found an inexplicable enthusiasm welling up inside me and it is no exaggeration to say that ever since I have been unable to think of ANYTHING EXCEPT RAG RUGS. Strongly suspect some kind of displacement activity going on here...linked to worries about kids, money, my NCT diploma, depression, menopause, money again...

At the course we were each given a piece of hessian and I decided to make a round cushion cover. I now have to turn it into a cushion which is the boring part.
My hands hurt. Having sliced off the tops of 2 fingers hasn't helped.

Done my first rug!

It's true that I started it last summer but I have not been working on it every evening since then. And it is not very big - just big enough to make a small bathmat.
I used a large faded green tablecloth and some old pink Laura Ashley material that had been purchased to make curtains about 30 years ago.
Pink and green - a bit 80s, I know.
But it's done, it's a slightly weird shape with a sort of waist in the middle where my tension control and edging went haywire. But it's done, and it's servicable, and I've still got lots of strips from these two items left over.

Which helps to give me an idea of what amount of fabric one needs.
Looking at this picture I have to admit it is a bloody odd shape.