Lost Art of Braid-in Rag Rugs Part 1

welcome to rag rugs by Erin in this episode we're going to be talking about the lost art of braids in rugs this art was lost mostly at the end of World War two I believe because people weren't didn't need to conserve on scraps or material they could get new things and that was an exciting time to not have to do that but I spent a lot of time researching trying to find out how to do this and I now feel like I've learned enough and taught myself enough to be able to show you as well and I know many of you were looking for this video so this is made out of jersey or t-shirt material as you can see these two or t-shirts and this is more jerseys old shorts of mine and the problem with that though there's more interest there you can see that you'd have to fold this in order to keep the design on this one this has a blue pattern which I don't fight that on that okay this is why this is called the braid in rug it's not a braid where it's a braid and then you sew it you see how it's interlocked and intertwined right into it as you go along you do not have to sew as you go you sew just a tad to get it started and that's it you could even tan sew it okay let's quickly go over this and then we're going to do another episode that's going to show you how to start one but this is just a general overview okay you know I like a good pair of scissors always important the tools that you'll need here is a tapestry needle it has a tip that isn't real sharp sometimes they call them yarn needles don't get a plastic one I find that that does not work well and as you can see well I'm not doing so hot here you go how easily that is is to braid also you can use a safety pin on the original ones that I saw they had teeny teeny safety pins this is a little bigger because that's what I had so you could use all safety pins and try it that way and if you want to go ahead and switch to a needle okay I'm going to put this aside for just a moment and show you the reason why as you watch my other videos I always use sheets I really like using sheets but my first ones that I tried was she see how its puckering and buckling and I could not get this thing to even did it several times to lay down and to be smooth and it's just to come around these corners there's not enough give okay so this is why I stopped struggling with it more sewing involved pretty colors but just a kind of an aggravating experience for me so I have put that to the side and I have now experimented and come up with using t-shirts which many people are using t-shirts to make rag rugs anyways so let me quickly show you a couple things and get you started and show you how to braid in and the second video episode of this I will show you how to actually get it started okay first thing I want to show you how the ends all have to be different lengths okay none of these end in the same spot you can't use both evolve as you've seen other videos where they'll make the yarn on the t-shirt have balls of them you won't be able to do that with this you have to braid it as you go and add on lengths and if it gets too long it gets too mixed up into a difficult situation you don't want them to end all in the same place because it will make a place where they're all joined and it will be too much pulling in that area won't be strong enough so you need to make sure you're staggering that okay so I'm going to show you how to make a stitch now and how this is okay so this is going to be we're going to name them this is one two three and four with the outside one which is number one you are going to go under the one directly next to it I'm going to do it slow you can do it fast once you figure this out don't have to be so without the next one you're going to go over so this is over three and under four so you see how this is it went under over and under this one now this is where you are going to intertwine it back in you're going to go into the next stitch once in a while you have to skip one and you slide it through and now you can see why you can't use a ball you have to just you're going to pull it not too much but just so it's laying flat ok now this takes the number one position see how there's four this is now it's always under over under and then enter see if the cameraman can see that and then you go into the rug that's where you're interred locking it pull it through we're going to do a couple more of those okay again there's four strands the farthest one out under over under and then pull it through the rug it's very simple as far as that goes it's just over and over the same type of situation and it braids it in okay one more time under over under and then back into the next one when you're going to be coming around the corners you're going to have to sometimes repeat into the same hole in order to get all the way around okay mr. cameraman do you think you got that or do you think I should do another stitch thank you got it okay so I'm going to show you one other things how to make connect them together you can of course show them or you could do it this way the way I've taught you in another video how to do it without sewing I have decided that I'm going to change this one okay and I'm going to go with this this is a cut off piece of a t-shirt that we've been saving and collecting this one didn't happen to have any theme so I have to create to make a strip okay here's the one I'm going to be connecting it to changing colors you fold it in half and you make a little snip this is the way it's going to look you watch my other videos I have one with sheet yarn that goes into much more detail you're going to take the color or the next strip that you're going to attach you're going to fold it over just like you did this put a little snip there's your hole you're going to take the one that's attached to the rug the one that's attached to the rug and you're going to slide through the one you're going to be added into this hole you're going to take the other end of the one you're adding and slide it back through its original end pull it through because there's so much give you've got to be a little careful a little bit more delicate with this and not yank it too hard the sheets can tolerate quite a bit more pulling than the Jersey can so you kind of pull it and see how it's now intertwine and just give it a little tug flatten it out and there no sewing it's a great great way to do it I'm going to show you one more time with the same color I folded it over see how that's folded over put a little snip I grabbed my same color because I'm continuing on something that interesting this one had a theme I went ahead and left the seam I didn't undo the scene because if you're going to sew it together why not have their beautiful scene that they've already done okay so I didn't even bother cutting that apart I just cut one seam off so it was a strip you take the one that you're going to attach doesn't matter which side put a little snip again see okay the one that is attached to the rug already the one that is going to be added the one that's going to be added is fed through the one that's already attached to your rug you feed it through and take the end this of the other end of the one you're attaching and feed it through the hole okay and then pull it gently I have to be careful and now you have it attached again okay so this is a general overview of a braid in rag rub join me for part two and I'll show you how to get one started thank you I hope this has been informative I haven't found anything else like this on youtube so I'm hoping that you'll enjoy this and it will give you another fun activity to do in your spare time and recycling some of your old things all right thank you

Channel: Erin Halvorsen

Views: 474,075

Rating: 4.9273772 out of 5

Keywords: rag rugs, t-shirt, recycling t-shirts, erin, Erin Halvorsen, braided, braided rugs, braid-in, braid-in rugs, easy rug making, simply rug making, Rug Making, recyling projects, rag rugs by Erin, Carpet (Visual Art Medium), oval, tshirt, diy, Do It Yourself (Hobby), lessons, textile, Recycling (Industry), como, zapatillas, rug, rugs, sheet, sheets, shirt, Braid, tapeta ganchillo, tapeta, ganchillo, rag rug, rag rugs how to make, how to make a rag rug, crochet rug, crochet rag rug

Id: XGjSLhal0Uc

Length: 10min 10sec (610 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 10 2015