Rugs: Past & Present

So here I am at home laid up on the couch. I majorly messed up my back yesterday while I was arranging the shelves and things in my studio. It was bad last night, but nothing like it was this morning when I woke up!!! So I had to cancel my Girl's Day in town today. I'm so bummed, but inorder to cope, I started a project long put off because of Wool Festival.

This is a new rug I'm starting for the yurt. I have a few others that I did back before I started blogging, so since I'm on my butt, this is a good time to blog about those old things too. This is my just started rug, done with the Ten Stitch cicular pattern. I'm using stash yarn that I ripped and recycled from some old heavy duty fisherman/ski sweaters. The yarns are bulky weight and I'm using a size 10.5 US. It's delightfully easy and I'm just going to keep spiraling around with different colors.

These two are little kitchen rugs that I knit out of acrylic yarn, backed with canvas and fringed. They've been great, kept their shape and color...and have been washed alot. I think acrylic belongs in the kitchen! This is the Log Cabin quilt sqare design, found in the book "Knitted Rugs".

I've made two braided rag rugs, and have strips cut for a third. These are made out of recycled cordouroy and velvet. (the combo makes them thick, cushiony and heavyduty) Thanks to my good friend, Jesse, who runs one of the thrift stores in Taos. She set aside many many things for me as they came into her store. That's where alot of my old sweaters came from too! I still had to pay for them, but I got first pick of all the goodies!
This is my first one. I spent so much time drooling over beautiful rugs that I could never afford, and I was determined to have nice rugs for my beautiful wood floor. I've learned that even with grown children, we are extremely hard on rugs!! So I'm glad I never forked out hundreds of dollars!!!

This is the second rag rug I made! I love the colors I had to work with!! I backed them with burlap to keep down the wear.