Rug is done.

I am not sure if I have mentioned this before and I don’t feel like scrolling through to check but I have been working on a rug for a few months. My friend Lin is an incredible weaver with an amazing studio that is also known as the sweatshop.

She cranks out project after project and encourages Molly and I to do the same. She has taught both of us to weave and supervised me on easier projects such as a scarf.

Because I am so messy and reckless I had a number of sweaters that had been ruined. Beautiful, soft, mostly pink, mostly cashmere sweaters. Mostly they met their end through stains or being carelessly thrown into the dryer. I wasn’t ready to part with them. I tried to felt them into immortality so I washed them all in hot water at least once. For some it worked and for others not so much. Then (or maybe before) I decided that I could use them to make a rug. It was not my idea; I read about it here http://www.re-nest.com/re-nest/rugs-carpets/recycled-sweater-rugs-035279. Would I spend $125 for a rug made out of someone else’s old sweaters? Maybe, but not when I had several of my own laying around and access to a loom. It was going to work perfectly because all of my sweaters were in a coordinating color family because that is how it works. You like a certain group of colors and you go with that. I had a few pinks, one green, and one dark blue/green color.

We then cut the sweaters into strips. Molly cut them into really really really long strips. Yards and yards and yards long. I suppose by starting at the bottom of the sweater and cutting in a spiral until there is nothing left. While we were cutting strips we got the warp ready – light and dark green stripes. We got it all on the loom, blah blah blah. That part took months because it was tedious and the loom was at Lin’s and there were the holidays… you know how it is. 

Now it is done! I am so happy. It came out so much better than I could have dreamed. I wish you could feel how crazy soft it is because it is unbelievable! Also, there are sweater bits throughout the rug like tags and a button.

I love every weird element and I am so happy that my old sweaters are a new rug that will last a lifetime, maybe more! It is 3.5X5 ft so bigger that the rug at the link above and free!