Worth knowing about rugs

A rag rug is just what it sound like – a rug made of rags. An ingenious art of recycling, where worn clothes, sheets, curtains, and other textiles are cut, torn, and then used as filling when weaving rugs, with strong cotton thread used for the warp.

This gives the weaver endless possibilities for creative coloring and design. The rags used are primarily of cotton, but it’s possible to weave with linen or knits, so this might occur. And way back, when they carefully re-used all worn clothes, they would also use wool cloth.

Rep weave rugs are made with a close/dense cotton warp in two (or possibly mor e) contrasting colors.

Originally this would be sort of a rag rug too, as the filling/weft would be of rags. Then came industrialization, when yarn became easily accessible and it became more fashionable to use cotton yarn for the filling too, alternated with a single thin thread every second row – thus achieving the two-colored reversible designs.

Shag rugs (Ryamatta in Swedish) are made of a heavy, sturdy cloth – like a net – adorned with a hand-knotted, long and often shaggy pile of wool.

The older vintage pile rugs are hard to find. The rugs from the 60s and 70s are a bit easier to come by since it was one of the hottest trends back then. It was even a hobby among many, even (surprise, surprise) men, to make it yourself. Now the hand-knotted shaggy, pile rugs are all in in trend again.

They are not what we commonly look for when treasure hunting, but every now and then we’ll find one.