Preparing to Twine

Once you have your loom made or bought, you need fabric.    All amounts of fabric listed will be for the rug.  Once I have done the smaller size and know how much fabric it takes, I will post!

For the material to warp the loom, you need about 2.5 yards of fabric - preferably muslin or sheets.  You much cut the fabric into 1.5 inch strips and join them (I knotted) to form a continuous strip of cloth.

I used an old twin sheet for my rug and it worked just fine.  And don't worry about the warp fabric matching the rest of the fabric - you don't even see it.  I suggest checking thrift stores if you don't have any old twin sheets as most have them available at very minimal cost.

For the material to twine the rug, you need 12-14 yards of fabric.  Try to recycle and use old clothes, sheets, curtains, scrap material, etc.  Again, yard sales and thrift stores are great places to check - and the clearance bins in the Wal-Mart fabric dept!  

You will need to cut your fabric into 3 inch wide strips.  You can actually use 3, 4 or 5 inch strips- the bigger you go, the faster your rug will be created - it just depends on your taste as well, because the thicker your strips, the thicker your twine.  Right now I prefer the 3-ish inch strip because it gives a nice, tight braid look to the rug.

Color matters more than print when looking for material for your rug.  Finding several different prints and solids in the same color pallet is really what you need.  For example, in my current rug, I have earth-tones.  Some of the fabrics are super cute retro prints, others are traditional florals and I have solids in various tones.  You will see later how it looks and how they all blend together.

Get your fabric together and get started!

Next post will be warping the loom.

The Loom (Frame)

This post will simply cover the loom design and specs.  I will be including the dimensions and specifics for the large, rug size and the smaller, place-mat size loom.  The pictures posted will show the smaller loom as the large loom is currently in-project!

Each loom is a simple frame design.  Four pieces of wood nailed (or stapled) together to make a rectangular frame.  Small nails are spaces out along the top and bottom of the loom and metal rings keep the stabilizing rods in place on either end of the loom.

The large loom is 40 inches tall and 28.5 inches wide.  The thickness of the wood is approx. 3/4 inch and the width is 2.5 inches.  As you can see from the picture, the width piece of wood is nailed/stapled over the length piece.  There are 15 nails spaced approx. 1 inch apart from each other and start and end at the inside of the length of the frame.  There are 4 rings to hold the stabilizing rod - 1 at each end and 2 in the middle.

The smaller loom uses 3/4 inch thick wood, but only 1.5 inches wide.  The length of the frame is 20 inches and the width 15 inches.  There are only 13 nails in this loom and 3 rings to hold the rods.

Simple construction - yay!  Now you are ready to go!

The Back Story

I had seen it before, on a trip the year before - a rug being twined.  It was at Silver Dollar City and I couldn't get it out of my mind - I wanted to learn how to do it myself.  In October, I won a $100 cash prize and knew exactly what I was going to spend it on - my twining loom.  I thought about it all winter long.  When summer came I would buy the loom (knowing the instructions for how to twine came with it).

In April we went back to SDC and I was so excited to get my loom.  In fact, we only went so I could buy it.  We walked into the store that sold it and looked around nervously before telling the lady I wanted to buy the twining loom.  She was thrilled and showed me how this was the best year to buy it because it was SDC's 50th Anniversary and, for the same price as previous years, they were selling the big rug loom and two other smaller looms for the same price!  Bonus: they made a video of how to twine instead of just an instruction book - YAY!!  I bought my looms and took them home, ready to get started.

Funny thing happened - I still though about twining, but never started.  First there was the obstacle of finding fabric - you need a lot to warp the loom and then twine the rug.  I took my sweet time gathering up all the free fabric I could and then I put the fabric in the guest room with the looms.  My husband kept teasing me saying I was never going to use the looms and they were just a waste of money.  I was determined to prove him wrong!

Almost a year later, here I am, making my rug.  Since twining is a dying art, I figured I would blog about it and maybe drum up interest for other people to try it.  I know when I was seeking out alternatives for creating a loom vs. buying one and then how to learn to do it, I couldn't find anything other than a couple books on Amazon that were like $30 each...pretty much cheaper to just buy the looms myself and get the instructions with them.  Anyway, I hope this project will inspire others! 

Tomorrow I will post directions for making a loom with all the dimensions so you can make your own.  The two pictured are the smaller looms.