![]() ![]() If you’re a woodworker please feel free to make and sell these. It’s about 20 inches long with a cup hook at the front for tensioning the warp, two posts at the back for sitting your spools of warp on, and a perpendicular piece of wood with two slits in it for keeping the warp tensioned and at an angle so you can get your hands underneath for speedy knot tying (for the sake of this tutorial I’m going to call this the “tensioning post”). Postage from the US to Australia was prohibitive because they were so heavy, so I copied down the measurements in the description and my Dad made me one. I will eventually put the measurements of the loom and detailed instructions for several projects on the small looms page but I really wanted to show you this much now □Ībout 6 months ago I saw some vintage rag rug looms on ebay. *note: original source for loom image above.I don’t usually put tutorials straight in the blog but I couldn’t wait to finish my rug to show you this! ![]() Depending on their technique (how forceful and frequent they banged the beater, how visible the warp was), weavers could produce rugs that lasted for years, even decades. Many were beautiful too. Finnish American weavers paid careful attention to the design, experimenting with patterns and colors. But, these rugs were more than utilitarian. As Lockwood describes in Finnish American Rag Rugs, rag rugs were utilitarian, functioning not as decorative wall hangings but as everyday floor coverings that were placed on thresholds or in living rooms, kitchens, bedrooms, by the hearth, or on stairs to protect or warm the floors of the house. Traditional Finnish rag rugs were often useful, beautiful and strong. Many different rags can be woven on the same warp. ![]() The process is done repeatedly, throwing the shuttle through the shed on the opposite side each time until the rug is the desired size. As it returns to its place, it makes a loud banging noise. When throwing left to right, the left treadle is pushed. Once the shuttle is through, the weaver switches pedals and pulls the overhead bar (the beater) towards them (once or twice or more) to tighten the weave. When throwing the shuttle through from right to left, the right treadle is pushed. This opening (the shed) is created by pushing down on one of two foot pedals (treadles). ![]() The shuttle is then pulled or thrown through an opening in the fabric that has been threaded vertically (the warp) on the loom. Used clothing or old fabric is cut into strips, joined together into one long strip (the weft), and wrapped around a shuttle. And, if you want to see what the weaving process looks like, watch this YouTube video:Ī process in which rugs are woven on a two or four harness loom using old clothes or used fabric. It has diagrams, a glossary of terms, warp designs and even advice on how to start your own weaving business. If you want to know more about how to set-up and use a loom like the one at the Puotinen Farm, read an instruction book for the Union loom. In this introduction, I’m not providing detailed information on the history of rag rug weaving or on how rag rug looms work. If you want to know more about rag rug weaving in the U.P., I recommend starting with Lockwood’s book, Finnish American Rag Rugs. I wish that I could have watched my grandma or my mom weaving on the Farm loom, or at least talked to them about the process. Lockwood's book ( Finnish American Rag Rugs: Art, Tradition and Ethnic Continuity), supplemented by a few online sources and the memory and story fragments from my mom's video interviews and my grandma's memoir. My information about Finnish American rag rug weaving comes primarily from Yvonne R. ![]()
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