The Hearthside Project

(Warning - lots of pictures!)

Here is what I can remember of how I made the rug on the Hearthside (I realized after the fact I didn’t measure & write down the finished size – DOH!).

Equipment:
Loom: 27” Hearthside Rigid Heddle Rug loom
Heddle: 9 dent Fiber:
Warp: Crystal Palace cotton 6/2 // 234 ends; 2 yds long
Weft: very old wool quilt batting, pulled into strips approx. 1 – 1 ½” wide (wool in roving form will work much easier) (I also neglected to weigh the rug after weaving, to get an idea of how much batting I used. It is quite lightweight, though, so probably less than 8 ounces?)
original form:
stretched out:Warping: I used 2-foot lengths of kraft paper while winding on. I doubled the edge warp threads for stability. I think it made it look a bit bunched up though, and I probably would not do that again with a roving weft. Also, if you notice on the loom picture above, it has wide strips of fabric (called the apron, I believe) holding the warp dowel to the warp beam. That caused a lot of problems with properly spacing the warp on both warp & cloth dowels. I either saw in a video or read in a book about tying a second dowel to the first with string, which would be an easy way to solve the problem and I will do that next time. Hmm... that might be why those black strings were tied on there. Guess I'd better put them back on!

Weaving: After weaving a header of about 10 shots of bulky yarn, I wove a hem of 7/8” with the warp yarn, and hemstitched it. I used a hair pick to beat the weft, as just using the rigid heddle did not work. I also later added a very small dowel between the header and the hem to give me a straight line to beat against, which I removed before winding onto the cloth beam. If I use this loom more often, I will cut a slat to use instead.Then I wove one shot of batting, and 2 shots of warp cotton (to lock the batt in place). Since the batting pieces were so short, I would just hook them in the shuttle and push them through, (an unusually long piece of weft)

still using the hair pick to beat the weft into place.
In process:At about 34 or 36", I had reached the end of the usable warp and finished off with another 7/8” hem, also hemstitched. Then I cut the rug off the loom, fixed some of the snaggy-looking and extra-puffed up 'stitches' (see that little bit that looks like a pill?),

and tied the fringe. After washing carefully to prevent felting, I shortened the fringe to approx. 4” long, and ‘combed’ the fringe with my fingers so it wouldn’t look so clumpy. And here the recipient with her new rug: Ending Notes: It turned out very lightweight, and not as firmly 'beaten' as it felt while on the loom. I really struggled to get a tight beat on it, but because the batting was so springy I was unsuccessful. I think the rug would be fine if I wanted to felt it, though. It probably will not stand up to being used as a floor rug for very long this way, but felting woud probably 'sturdy it up' quite a bit, and Mom said she would rather use it more like a table runner. I need to allow more warp length for waste as well.

I chose the quilt batting for this project, as it was my grandmother's, as is the loom, giving the project some sentimental value for my mom.


I will try this again, but use 'regular' roving; and I'd like to try a rug with that mop cotton or rug filler stuff, once I find a source, and see if that works better as well.