Heirloom Rug Class

 Summer is waning fast and that means September and my Heirloom Rug Class will be here before we know it.  This year's class will be Sunday, Monday and Tuesday September 15, 16 and 17, from 9-3:30.   We usually stay late and hook past dinner time.  Carl will make us dinner so we don't have to stop hooking.

For those of you who don't know about this class, here are some photos of the type of rugs we work on in the class.  This is my specialty and I love teaching how to make your own 'antique look' or heirloom rug.  I wrote a nice book about it and each student gets a copy of the book when they attend class.  We discuss the various ways to achieve this old look and then each student incorporates 4 or 5 of the 15 different techniques into their rug.

I always say these rugs are so homely that only a mother could love them, but that is unfair!  They really are beautiful in their primitive way and certainly are some of my favorites.  The horse rug above is the one I use for my store logo.  I drew this pattern, but it was inspired by an antique rug. The black horse seems straight forward enough, but was really rather complicated.  And although the original may have been done with scraps, the planning of this 'scrappy' rug was also an interesting labor.

I also drew the chicken family, yet it too was inspired by an antique rug.  Making the stains in the background which resembled the original was tricky.  I know some of my friends wondered why I wanted to make a brand new rug look stained, but I am sure you get the point.  It aged it immediately!

The horse/chicken/rooster rug is a pattern from Woolley Fox.  The background of that rug is really a great use of scraps.  I took all my "blackesque" wool, separated them so they stayed with their friends, then drew pools and puddles into the background of the pattern with my Sharpie marker.  Then instead of mixing the black
wools, I filled in individual areas with one color of wool.  I was careful to balance them thru out, so I maintained by triangle placement, always using a single color in three places.  Hopefully you can see the different black/green, black/brown, black/check, etc wool thru out the background.  It gave the rug an automatic old feel and used up lots of leftovers beside.

The 3 Roosters rug is also an antique inspired rug.  This one I did not draw, but the pattern maker is no longer in business, to my knowledge.  I used 10 different blacks in the roosters and then managed my background of browns sugars, pecos sand and toasted almond, so it looks like one end has faded lighter.   Or maybe the maker had to stew a new pot of wool and the walnuts she used for her dye were no longer in season.

Ah......vintage rugs, my passion.  If you would like to learn how to make your own "Heirloom Rug" call or write me for more information.  There are still 2 spots available in the September 2013 class.

More rugs next time,
Janice