Designing, Weaving, and Finishing the Rug

Colors

Schuster chooses colors by twisting together single strands of all the shades she’s considering, which shows their value and contrast as they’ll read in the weft ¹. Keep a dark ground color for at least half the rug; accents read against it.

Draw the rug

The class designs on graph paper with colored pencils ². Schuster balances “moments of solitude and moments of sociability”: a wide, busy pattern band next to a narrow solid one ¹.

1. Draw the rug’s outline at a small scale: 24 by 36 inches.
2. Plan the bands: solid ground, narrow dotted stripes, wide pattern bands, and a border at each end. Mirror the plan about the middle so the rug ends match.
3. Draw each pattern band at full detail, one square per warp end and one row per pass, using the krokbragd grid from lesson 2 or bound-rosepath rows.
4. Count the inches of each color and multiply by your measured yardage per inch from the sampler. Add 10 percent.

Krokbragd stripes are usually three colors at a time ³, which keeps the shuttles manageable.

Weave

• Header. Weave about an inch of plain weave in warp yarn, or two or three rows of twining, to spread the warp and give the finishing something to hold.
• Beat and angle. Lay each pick in the shed at an angle or in a slight arc before beating, so there’s enough weft to wrap the warp without pulling in. Beat firmly to cover the warp; Schuster’s rug ran 28 picks per inch ⁴.
• Selvedges. Catch the floating selvedge on each pass so the edge wefts lock. Stack the shuttles in the order you’ll use them so the colors twist at the edges the same way each time. A temple holds the width steady.
• Splices. Start and end colors inside the shed, overlapping the tails an inch or so, and tuck the ends to the back.
• Measure. Measure under tension along the edge, and release tension at the end of each day.

Finish

Cut off, leaving 6 inches of warp at each end. Then:

• Knots. Tie groups of 2 to 4 warp ends in overhand knots snug against the header and trim to an even fringe.
• Hem. Or weave an inch of plain weave at each end, turn it under twice, and sew it down.

Steam the rug face-down through a damp cloth, let it dry flat, and trim the weft tails flush. Vävstuga’s rosepath rugs are woven on 8/3 linen with a firm rug wool ⁵; a weft-faced rug like this one is meant for the floor.

Try it

Weave the first border, then stop and look at the rug from the far side of the room. If the pattern band reads as a muddle from there, raise the contrast between its colors before weaving the rest.