I have a stack of worn out and otherwise discarded jeans trousers - which I'm in the process of cutting into strips so as to make a rug. I'm using my new (acquired in anticipation of this project) roller cutter and cannot praise it enough - I love it! I'm hoping to cut up enough trousers in the next two days to be able to think about pattern, and to start warping up.
At the moment I'm thinking that I'll not twist the strips, and that I'll use a terry-cloth/loop weft.
This makes me (us?) curious. Please keep us posted. Els
I will be looking forward to seeing how this progresses.
What width on jean-strips, warp pattern, size, & colors, etc. I notice folks always enjoy " Progress-Pics " & they always draw more comments !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Hey, me too! I'm just getting back to weaving after a 15+ year hiatus and my first project is making rag rugs for my kitchen out of my old blue jeans! I'm using cotton rug warp and the strips of jeans for weft. I'll be very interested in seeing how it works for you to use the pants material as the warp. This looks like a fun project!
Will get some pics on here after ' finishing '.
wow!
thanks everyone - well here's the update - I've now cut up three or is it four pairs of jeans.
I'm not being terribly finicky about the width but am keeping it around .5 to .75 cm per strip.
I think I have enough to work with now - I'm going to try and sit down to calculate that today.
While I have a pile of material to work with - I've pulled out those jeans/trousers that are made of the same (or nearly the same) material. I've got a tan, two shades of grey-black, and a red one.
I'm using a linen warp used in carpet making. I'm a huge fan of linen so this will be fun. The last rug I did was a hand knotted one (you can see pics on my project pages and a bit more detail here at my blog) - there I used cotton warp which worked fine - however, I have the impression that the linen warp I'm using will be slightly stiffer in the end result so it will be interesting to see how it affects the final rug.
In addition to my cut up jeans I'm using a rather pretty mauve (??) coloured wool rug yarn I found at my favourite weaving shop here in London (Hand Weaver's Studio) - how that is going to become a feature in this project is yet to be determined but I need a ground weft and this caught my eye (grin).
The rug will be about 90cm wide on the loom - I'm using an Ashford Rigid Heddle. I'm still debating which reed/heddle to use leaning towards the 5 but I'll know better once I do the calculations.
For me this will be interesting as it will actually be the first time in all of my weaving that I've sat down to calculate something - anything! I've generally "intuited" things and I guess have been very lucky (grin).
I'm hoping to start warping up if not today, then by monday - pics to follow.
Just saw this...looks like fun. Bound to be wonderfully springy and lovely on bare feet.
Thanks Laverne,
so far it has been a fun process - and you're right - I'm looking forward to the springy-ness underfoot when its finished. There's more of an explanation of things as they are on the blog I'll be sure to post a few pics after I've got more of it woven - I think its hard to get a sense of what it'll be like just at the moment - though one can hope (grin).
Can not wait to see your finished product. Please keep us posted with pictures, etc. Sounds like a project I would like to try, too.
thanks,
at the moment I've had to pause for a "re-think" on certain parts of the plan. i was hoping to only use jeans material - but now i'm realising i'll have to introduce linen trouser material as well as plan "A" (using the ground weft thread) simply did not work the way I wanted. that's fine - it is one of those free for all learn as i go "experiments" and so far i've never been disappointed by them.
i'll have some more pics up soon once i finish re-strategising.
