The first rug for this warp is complete, but not without some “issues”.

Rag Rug #1 – Evenweave

I wanted this rug to end up being about 24″ X 36″.  The warp is 27″ wide and I wove for 40″ – all evenweave.  I took it off the loom (you’ll see why later in this post), tied the ends and washed and dried it.  It is wonderfully soft!  The dimensions without fringe are:  18″X29 1/4″.  I lost almost 11″ in length and 9″ in width.  This is good to know for future items!  Another surprise to me was that it only took 4 t-shirts!  I have boxes of the kid’s t-shirts and lots of them already cut and rolled into yarn balls.  I will need to think of other things to make from them as we don’t need that many rugs.  This rug is already in use by the front door.

Challenges:  t – e – n – s – i – o – n!  I am a newish weaver.  I have only ever warped this loom with the help of a teacher and have never put a warp on that is this long.  I decided to “just go for it” and use the rag rugs as an experiment and learning opportunity.

Warp issues.

As I was weaving and advancing my warp, this is what was happening at the back of the loom.  The threads were coming loose and not holding tension.  I would run my fingers through them, and then stick the pick up sticks in the back and twist to get at least some tension so I could weave.

Warp hanging off the back of the loom.

Without the pick up sticks and weights, the warp looked like this.  From this picture, I’m sure some of you can see what I did wrong.  The warp on the back beam is much narrower than the weaving width.  I forgot to measure the width of the warp when I put it in the raddle and adjust to make sure the warp went straight across from the back beam to the front beam.

Re-rolled warp.

To fix the problem, I stopped weaving and rolled the warp to the front beam, fixing the tangles.  Once all of the warp was on the front beam, I retied it onto the back beam and rolled back.  Many, many hours later, I still had some issues, but not as many as before.  The warp is not perfect, but it is straight, has no tangles and I can weave much easier.  And I started the second rug.

2nd rag rug – twill

If all goes well, the plan is to weave about 8 more rugs with this warp.  I am not planning on cutting them off as I finish each one but rather to weave with the whole warp and cut them at the end.  Wish me luck!!