Rag Rugging for Beginners: Make Textile Home Decorations

Rag Rugging for Beginners: Make Textile Home Decorations

“Wow! You've now reached the final stage of the course. It has been so lovely teaching you how to rag rug. Thank you for being such a great and engaged student! I will now give you a little reminder of the steps needed to complete your project. Preparing the Materials Choosing the hessian (or burlap): When selecting your hessian, choose a good quality one with a regular weave in order to create a rag rug that will last for years. A high-quality hessian tends to be more golden in colour, as opposed to a dirty brown. Aside from the quality, choose a hessian with a weave of roughly ten holes per inch. You can go slightly tighter or looser than this, but it’s a good weave to aim for, as it will help to secure your fabric pieces in position. Tips on fabric selection: The ethos is around recycling. So ideally, I encourage you to use old clothing and textile waste. If you don’t have these around, then you can source cheap clothing in charity and thrift shops. Avoid buying new material! You can even ask friends and family for offloads before spending money. You’d be surprised by how much stuff comes your way!

Inspiration and Colour Scheme As you’re creating something entirely customised and personal, you can bring in colours from the room or space where the rug or project will eventually live. Alternatively, sometimes the inspiration comes from the fabrics that you want to use up. If this is the case, pull together what you have into a pile and remove any items that don’t feel cohesive to the pile as a whole. You can also find colour combinations online and use these as a starting point. Sketching the Idea Rag rugging is meant to be imperfect, so don't be afraid to freehand sketch. This will give character to your designs. Equally, you can print a design to scale on paper or draw it to scale on grid paper, go over it with a marker pen, then trace through the hessian. If you're dealing with a more complicated design, you could divide it into a grid to transfer it over. Hemming the Hessian If you're doing the shaggy or short shaggy techniques, the hem will generally be hidden by the material so there is no need to rag rug through it. With the loopy technique, you need to rag rug through the hem itself to cover it fully. Or, fold it under and stitch it in position at the end. Measure out the size of hessian you’d like. If your rug needs to be precise, then add 2cm to the measurements for each edge that you plan to hem. Feel free to pin the edges in position first if you find it easier. The Shaggy Technique For the shaggy technique, use pieces of fabric that have been cut to approximately 9 cm in length. The width depends on how thick the fabric is, but generally, around 2 cm works for most fabric weights. Fabric pieces can be cut to length quicker and easier using a rag rug cutting gauge. After a few pieces, check the back of your rag rugging to ensure that the hessian is tightening but not warping. Adjust your spacing if needed. The Short Shaggy Technique When preparing fabric for the short shaggy technique, the process is the same as the shaggy technique, however strips of fabric should be about half the width of those used for the shaggy technique, i.e. around 1 to 1.5 cm in width for medium weight fabrics. The short shaggy technique is done in a similar way to the shaggy technique, however you grip the centre of the strip on long edge, as opposed to a corner. If you struggle to estimate where the halfway point along the strip is, you can hold the fabric piece in half first before gripping it with the spring tool. When filling the areas around the flowers, try not to rag rug towards or away from the flower as this can make it look squashed. This technique can also be done with the latch hook. As always, mind your spacing. The Loopy Technique For this technique, you will need long strips of fabric. I cut them around 1.5 cm in width for medium weight fabrics and adjust for thinner or thicker materials. The most specialist tool is a rug hook, but at a stretch you can use a latch hook. If trying with a latch hook, some people find it easier to tape the latch back or remove it permanently with pliers. The loopy technique is slightly trickier so it requires a little practice. Make sure the first and last end of the fabric strip are through to the top of the hessian rather than on the underside. To finish, trim the ends of the strips to the same height as the loops to disguise them well. Rag rugs are wonderful in that each one is truly unique. This is great as you can completely put your own spin on it. For example, you could scale the rug up or down to fit your own space, change the colours to suit your home, or even put a completely different design in the central panel. Perhaps a sun, rainbow, loved ones name, or geometric design. Remember, you can always remove rag rugging easily and use the same hessian you’ve removed pieces from. This means that if you’re unsure of a colour or fabric, it’s easy to change. You’ve got absolutely nothing to lose with experimenting. So be playful and have fun! I can't wait to see what fantastic rug you produce! You can share your project with all of us by clicking on 'Create your project'. Remember to share both the final result and the steps that have led you to it. It would be great if you showed a picture of each step and added a brief explanation about what you have done in each one. I will try my best to engage with the forum as much as possible. If you have any questions, be sure to ask them! I will reply as soon as I can, but in the meantime, I encourage you to interact with each other. Communication fuels creativity. So, don't be afraid to reach out and collaborate with others. Thanks again for joining me in this course. I hope that you've enjoyed it as much as I have. I look forward to seeing you in the Domestika forum! ”

Partial transcription of the video

“ Final Project Well done, you've made it to this stage in the course, which is our final lesson. In this lesson, I'll be recapping some of the main steps that you'll need to complete to be able to do your final project. To start with, I wanted to mention that we need to source our Hessian. There are a few things that you need to watch out for. The first one is that you want a weave of Hessian that's approximately ten holes per inch. You can vary it slightly from there but it's a good place to start out. The second thing to watch out for is to look for a better quality one. You're looking f...”

This transcript is automatically generated, so it may contain mistakes.

Course summary for: Rag Rugging for Beginners: Make Textile Home Decorations

• Level: Beginner
• 100% positive reviews (38)
• 1200 students
• 5 units
• 20 lessons (4h 8m)
• 5 downloads

• Category

  Craft

• Areas

  Accessory Design, Arts & Crafts, Decoration, Fiber Arts, Textile Design