Q&A- How long to make the strips? - AND- An intersting site to check out- knitted rag rugs

A friend of mine just made me aware of this site http://shewhomeasures.wordpress.com

An entry which may be of interest is one on making one long strip from a large piece of fabric.

I've tried similar things before, but found that it didn't usually work for this technique because the corners tended to "rip out." But maybe it'll work for others of you... if it does, wunderbar! Let me know!

I have used a spiral cut with pantyhose, socks, and other very "givey" or stretchy fabrics.

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Q&A: So long do you make the strips?

That varies on type of fabric, how tightly you stitch, and personal preference. Obviously, longer the strip, the more you have to pull through on each stitch. Correspondingly, the shorter the strip, the more junctions you need. For my purposes, I've found that strips longer than 3' get unwieldy, but my sister who stitches much more loosely than I commonly uses strips twice that long. With the looser stitch, there's less friction. Its all a matter of personal taste. You know over arching philosophy with this is- this craft should be about fun, about making treasure from trash, not rules. So... experiment with different lengths and different fabrics. If the strip is too long and gets unwieldy, just chop it, put slits in each end, and do a joint when its time. HAVE FUN, and do what works for YOU!

Q&A: How much material is needed for a "normal" rug?

My dear friend is full of great questions today! Glad to answer them. I know being the husband of a disabled professor, that the question one person asks, 10 people have in their heads.

This is a more complicated question though, not quite so suitable to the "Q&A format" of the previous two posts.

There are SO many variables. Synthetic fabrics, for example, are lighter than cotton, which is lighter than linen. The plastics from which I make my umbrella/shopping bag/shower curtain rugs are VERY light, which is why that's the rug I usually take with me on the "L" or to Tess' doctor.

I have noticed, however, that one BIG gym bag full of strips will make a rug about the size of the rug shown above.

I can also tell you that this rug was made out of cottons and cotton polys- probably 2/3 cotton by weight. I weighted the clothesbefore I started the rug, and it came out to around 25 pounds. (Because I've been doing this so long, I knew what size I wanted the rug, and about what size the pile of "raw clothes" had to be to make it.) Zippers, seams, pockets removed, the finished rug was closer to 20 pounds.

So if you use clothing which is a mixture of cotton and poly, and want a rug about this size, this should give you some idea of how much by weight you'll need. For an all cotton rug, you'll need more by weight, for one heavier in synthetics, you'll need less by weight.


One other relevant hint: For my stitching, I've noticed that VERY consistently, 1 foot of strip = 1 inch of stitch!

The junction between strips is a square knot

I've long wanted to nail down the terminology of this craft, and while searching for information on different types of knots, I determined cutting a slit in the ends of the strips and passing the new strip up from under and through both slits forms a square knot. No wonder its so strong!