The Rug of Awesome Rip-Rip-Rip

It’s been a while now. I’ve been busy with writing, sewing, knitting and WEAVING. Soon I will update with new shiny pads, but first I must blog this, because I’ve been working on this rug for something like six months. I did an update in December, when I had only just started weaving, and this is the end product of all that cutting, ripping, weaving, swearing and you know, all that fun pre-weaving stuff (there’s seriously, like seven steps before you even get to sit down).

This is the whole thing. And yes, it’s too long to even FIT in my kitchen, at 354 centimetres. That’s over three and a half metres or 11.5 feet. Yes. Seriously.

I got the inspiration for this rug when I read in the Swedish weaving magazine Vävmagasinet about this man who, after his partner died, cut every single piece of clothing he’d worn into rags, and wove a rug from it. He didn’t stop until they were all gone and the result was the most amazing rug, so big that he actually had to roll it out on the grass outside his house so they could photograph it. It was breath taking and totally made me well up in class.

So, a few months later I cleaned my closet out of all clothes I could no longer wear (think sizes 38-42, that is a UK 10-14), and stuffed them in the attic, thought no more about it until I had to move. Then I took them out, thought about throwing them out and went “hmmm”.

So, here it is. A rug woven from all the clothes I’ve worn in the last five or so years, sorted by colour and interspaced by dark blue (not originally clothing) to give it a bit of stability. Each of the blue blocks are ten centimetres, but the actual clothes have been used until I ran out. The thin ones were tank top, the medium ones short sleeved tops and the big long sleeved.

And for a bit more detail, I’ve taken it in three shots:

The red and yellow. I recognise the shirt I wore when I met my ex (the big red-white one) , a few shirts my sister gave me when I returned from Florida (most of the reds), a shirt she did the print for; it said “More trees, less Bush” (a yellow), and my Sweden shirt. It’s the other yellow, and I found it in the men’s section at Target when I lived abroad. It had a boxer and SWEDEN printed on it and I bought it simply because I missed home so much. I wore it even after I accidentally got hair dye on it.

Obviously Ash has good taste. The green is my favourite section too. Here’s some more shirts Ania gave me, a couple that I bought when those became too small (and then THOSE became too small) and one that was a present. (My grandmother thought it was rude to cut that one up, even though I’d never use it again.) The thinnest one is the shirt I bought upon my return to Sweden, to celebrate a) that my weight gain meant more cleavage, and b) my first real spring of five years.

The light is doing weird things here, sorry about that. It’s blues and purples, some which were gifted to me, and some which I bought because I can’t walk past a purple top without trying it on. One of the blue is my Beskyddaren-tee, a leftover from my first music obsession, the Swedish band Kent. Another one is for my second music obsession, Ani DiFranco. One was a Beatles shirt, although I rarely listen to them. And the last, stripey one I had a damn fine cleavage in. Just saying.

And yes, that is about it. Though I could talk about this all day if you let me!

Edited: April 12th, 2010

Weaving project

Okay, so, I meant to blog something months ago about how I have a serious leaning towards cutesy pads, but I am afraid that I have sold most of those pads already, so those pics are kind of old news by now. Such is life.

I will however post a few pictures of my first finished weaving project. It’s a soft, fuzzy blanket, and I thank my grandmother for doing the tricky parts, such as winding up the lengthwise yarn (varpen), making the stripes. I just put in the red (inslagen), and they showed up by itself. One of the magic things about weaving, I suppose.

Edited: March 20th, 2010

Weaving Up a Storm

I really need to get some new stock made and posted, preferably before the madness that is NaNoWriMo. That gives me nine days. Should be doable, provided that I don’t get sidetracked by a) kitten, b) other crafty projects, c) the unpacking of the last two boxes.

I hate moving. I really, really, REALLY hate moving. Which is why it makes little sense for me to take a full month to unpack, but there you have it. At least I’ve only got one room to go now!

Knitting is easier than sewing, because I can do it when I’m out and about, so I finished a pair of socks despite my relative business.

Pattern: Minerva’s Tower.

Ravelry: link.

Yarn: Knit Picks Essential (75% superwash wool, 25% nylon, 50 grams, 211 metres/231 yards), 2 skeins burgundy.

I bought this yarn probably three years ago, knitted one sock, was rudely interrupted by a break up that made me not want to touch anything I had been working on prior to it, and stuffed it in the closet for an eternity and a half. When I was going to Edinburgh at the end of October I looked through my stash for a suitable solid sock yarn and found it.

Ripping that lone sock out and reknitting it into something like this was oddly liberating and just what I needed to do.

The pattern is written by my dear friend Corrina of Picnic Knits, and I love it to pieces, especially the fact that there is a small/medium and a medium/large size, of which I knitted the latter. I did not follow the directions for the toe, which I regret, but can’t be arsed fixing.

Wool socks are necessary when I weave, because you cannot wear shoes while doing it, and the weaving room is in the basement of a church with concrete flooring. It’s always freezing down there, and I lovelovelove having proper socks to keep myself warm!

Speaking of weaving… It’s a new thing of mine, and I love it. It’s very meditative and I put music on and get to work. The rest of the women taking this class are ranging from 55-85 in age, so I’m the young one, but I’m okay with that. I especially like that I can go there any time and work without having to talk to anyone. Why yes, I am a bit of a hermit.

And while we’re on the subject, a few weaving related pics:

In the last year I have gained a ridiculous amount of weight because of meds that are essential for my well-being. This of course means that none of my clothes fit anymore, and cleaning out my closet of all these shirts that were too short and too tight and just made me sad was amazing. So, when I started weaving I decided to take all these too small clothes and cut them into strips and make a long memory rug from it.

I have a lot of different colours, but red and green are the ones reoccuring the most often. So, to use that as a strength rather than trying to hide it, I sorted everything by colour before starting to weaving.

The second pic shows my loom all set up and ready to go. It takes quite a bit of time to do the warping and other stuff, but once you’re done, it’s so satisfying to sit down and weave.

I’ve woved almost exactly a metre at this point and used up all my reds. Between each one I have 10 cm of navy blue, to break up the different colours and bring them together. The little old ladies were dubious at first, but seem to be more convinced after I’ve done a few stripes…

I really like the result produced by striped strips of fabric! Most of them are red and white, but I also have a red and black one, and some in several green and purple shades coming up.

I can’t weave without music on, so my ipod always accompanies me. The others chat or listen to the radio, but I weave the best (and the fastest!) when I turn the music up and get going. Here it is The Indelicates that are accompanying me.

Edited: October 21st, 2009