Rag Rugs, Part 1

One of the big things I learned in 2012 is to never mess around about signing up for classes at The Mannings, one of my favorite places on earth. I didn’t jump when the first half of the year’s classes were posted, so when I they posted classes for the second half of the year, I jumped.

I signed up for “Beginning Rag Rugs,” a class taking place on the last two days of October. As I was getting my act together to leave town on Monday, October 29, Carol called from The Mannings to tell me that the forecast for Hurricane Sandy in their area was scary. They’d try to reschedule later in the week, but for now, class wasn’t happening.


Fortunately, Sandy took it easy on East Berlin, Pa., and its surrounding areas, so I headed east on Halloween to start my class on November 1. This class provides pre-warped looms, and is set for six students. Three looms had a “warm” warp.


And three looms had a “cool” warp.


I was indecisive, and fortunate that I had a classmate who was also interested in trying both warps, so Janet and I swapped looms after we finished our first rug. Janet brought thrift-store sheets for her rugs, and because she did not like the small lump caused by the suggested joining method and had some very short strips, she chose to make very small rugs.

Her first one was on the “warm” warp.



And her second rug was on the “cool” warp.


I don’t remember where/how she was planning to use her rugs. That’s a casualty of not blogging until nearly two months after the class. Oops.

Meanwhile, Joyce had essentially two full bolts of very similar brown leaf-print batik, and she was able to weave two long rugs on her warm-warp loom.




Sondra had some really cool coverlet remnants that she had dyed with natural dyes in her home studio (which sounds REALLY cool and includes several family heirloom large rug looms!)


It was an unusual weft and a bit of a challenge to work with, but she wound up with a really awesome rug with all kinds of texture.


And then, there was Judith. A truly lovely person who retired to the area just so she could be closer to The Mannings! How cool is that?!?!?!!! She came in with a bolt of purple batik and a bolt of fuschia batik and came up with some awesome rugs on her cool-warped loom.






I helped her tear some of her strips. Fun!






This post is already ginormous, so I’ll show you my two rugs tomorrow!