Finished T-Shirt Rag Rug

It's finished!

Very colorful, slightly wonky but functional rag runner rug.  As you can see, we have a concrete floor and it is cold during the winter, this rug helps a lot.

My big mistake, which is probably common for new weavers, was I pulled the t-shirt weft material too tightly.  The side bars on the loom helped but didn't solve the problem.  What should have been a 3' x 6' rug turned out to be 2.5' x 6', which is ok.  Now I know better how to handle the material.  Another issue was some of the fabric was polyester rather than cotton and thinner so I doubled the thickness to make it even out.  I won't be using the polyester stuff even if it is free again.  

I am glad this rug is not too heavy, it will also fit in the washer nicely. 

As for the loom, I will be adding more screw eyes to hold the side bars to keep it from bowing, but not pulling my fabric too tight should also help.  I will also add another screw to each side on top & bottom so I don't have as wide a piece with no warp on each side.

All in all it was a great learning experience and I'll be making more rugs as I have time.

Making a Rag Rug

After perusing Pinterest for ideas on making a rug loom, I came up with this simple design to make rugs in the size I wanted.  Approximately 3' x 6'.  I use 2x2x8s, 2" wide inside corner brackets to hold it together securely, 2 1/2" screws to string the warp on, and 2 rigid garden stakes held in place with large screw eyes to keep the sides of the rug from curving inward.

As you can see I was not entirely successful in keeping the sides straight.  I will be adding more screw eyes to the sides.  The garden stakes are a rigid plastic and a lot more affordable and light weight than anything else I looked at. 

The fabric is from t-shirts cut into 1" wide strips.  I recycled some of my own that needed to be made into rags or thrown out and I bought a bag full at our local thrift shop to get more colors.  I think I can make quite a few of these with the shirts and strips I have.  For the warp I used cotton yarn. 

 So far I am quite pleased with it, even with the slight wonkiness.