Rugs

I just finished a new batch of wool rugs. I took them off the loom in a big roll and now I have to tie up the fringes or sew up the hems, wash them, hang them out to dry, label them, and then stash them in big tubs until the selling season starts in April. Once I get them photographed, the rugs will also be available in my Etsy Shop.

I've been making these handwoven wool rugs for almost 20 years. Our first sheep were a couple of bummer lambs from a friend who had two sheep who could only count to two give birth to triplets. Not mine, they each said of the third one. So we brought them home and bottle fed them until they were old enough to live in the pasture. Their names were Agatha and Athena. Joel decided that he wanted to learn to spin so that we could do something productive with the wool. I already knew how to weave having learned in college so as soon as Joel had mastered the spinning wheel we were off with a new farm product.

The rugs are woven on a warp of cotton carpet warp in a twill pattern. The colors of the wool are usually the natural sheep colors of white, grey, and ten and I love working with those colors although I do occasionally do a bit of dyeing when I get tired of neutrals. This most recent batch of rugs are all white with two of them having dark grey stripes at either end.