There are two conditions which will make home weaving valuable. The first is that the material, whether it be of cotton or wool, should be grown upon the farm, and that it could not be sold in the raw state at a price which would make the growing of it profitable. In wool crops there are certain odds and ends of ragged, stained and torn locks, which would injure the appearance of the fleece, and are therefore thrown aside, and this waste is perfectly suitable for rug weaving.

In cotton there is not the amount of waste, but the fibre itself is not as valuable, and a portion of it could be reserved for home weaving, even though it should not be turned to more profitable account.

The next condition is that the time used in weaving is also waste or left-over time. If housekeeping requires only a quarter or half of a woman’s time, weaving is more restful and interesting, as well as more profitable, than idleness; and in almost every family there are members to whom partial employment would be a boon.

There is no marketable value for spare time or for individual taste, so that the women of the family possessing these can start a weaving enterprise, counting only the cost of material at growers’ prices. If they can card, spin, dye and weave as well as the women of two generations did before them, they have a most profitable industry in their own hands in the shape of weaving.

If materials must be purchased the profit is smaller, and the question arises whether spare time and personal taste and skill can be made profitable. This depends entirely upon circumstances and character. When circumstances are or can be made favourable, and there is industry and ambition behind them, domestic weaving is a beautiful and profitable occupation.

There are many neighbourhoods where the conditions are exactly suitable to the prosecution of important domestic industries—localities where sheep are raised and wool is a regular product, or where cotton is grown and the weaving habit is not extinct. This is true of many New England neighbourhoods and of the whole Cumberland Mountain region, and it is in response to a demand for direction of unapplied advantages that this book is written.

I am convinced that the weaving of domestic wool or cotton rugs might be so developed in the mountain regions of the South as to greatly decrease the importation of Eastern ones of the same grade.

An endless variety might be made in these localities, the difference of climate, material and habits of thought adding interest as well as variety, and it is safe to say that the home market is waiting for them. Housekeepers have learned by experience that a rug which can be easily lifted and frequently shaken is not only far more cleanly, and consequently safer, from a sanitary point of view, than a carpet, but that it has other merits which are of economic as well as esthetic importance.

A rug is more durable than a carpet of equal weight and texture because it can be constantly shifted from points of wear to those which are less exposed. It can be moved from room to room, or even from house to house, without the trouble of shaping or fitting; and last but not least, it brings a concentration of colour exactly where it is needed for effect, and this is possible to no other piece of house furnishing. In short, there seems to be no bar to its general acceptance, excepting the bad floors of our immediate predecessors in building.

It only needs that cost, quality and general effect of the home-woven rugs should be shaped into perfect adaptation to our wants, to make them as necessary a part of ordinary house-furnishing as chairs and tables.

These three requirements are within the reach of any home-weaving farmer’s wife who will give to the work the same thought for economical conditions, the same ambition for thorough work and the same intelligent study which her husband bestows upon his successful farming.

As there is already one American rug which fulfills most of these conditions, it is well to consider it as a starting point for progress. This is the heavy Indian rug known as the Navajo blanket. Originally fashioned to withstand the cold and exposure of outdoor life, it has combined thickness, durability and softness with excellent colour and weaving and perfectly characteristic design.

In the best examples, where the wool is not bought from traders, but carded, spun and dyed by the weaver, the Navajo blanket is a perfect production of its kind, and I cannot help wondering that the manufacture of these rug-like blankets—some of which are of great intrinsic value—should have been so long confined to a primitive race, living at our very doors. The whole process of spinning, dyeing and weaving could be carried on in any farmhouse, using the coarsest and least valuable wool, and by reliable and well-chosen colour, good weight and careful weaving bringing the manufacture into a prominent place among the home productions of our people.

One can hardly imagine simpler machinery than is used by the Indians. It is scarcely more than a parallelogram of sticks, supported by a back brace, and yet upon these simple looms an Indian woman will weave a fabric that will actually hold water.

The clumsy, old-fashioned loom which is still in use in many farmhouses is fully equal to all demands of this variety of weaving, but there are already in the market steel-frame looms with fly shuttles which take up much less room and are more easily worked. I was about to say they were capable of better work, but nothing could be better in method than the Indian rug, woven on its three upright sticks; and after all it is well to remember that quality is in the weaver, and not in the loom. The results obtained from the simplest machinery can be made to cover ground which is truly artistic.

As an example of what may be done to make this kind of weaving available, we will suppose that some one having an ordinary loom, and in the habit of weaving rag carpet, wishes to experiment toward the production of a good yarn rug. The first thing required would, of course, be material for both warp and woof.

The warp can be made of strong cotton yarn which is manufactured for this very purpose and can be bought for about seventeen cents a pound. This is probably cheaper than it could be carded and spun at home even on a cotton-growing farm.

The wool filling should be coarse and slack-twisted, and on wool-growing farms or in wool-growing districts is easily produced. If it is of home manufacture, it may be spun as loosely or slackly as possible, dyed and woven without doubling, which will be seen to be an economy of labor. The single thread, slackly twisted, gives a very desirable elasticity to the fabric, because the wool fibre is not too closely bound or packed. On the other hand, if the wool as well as the warp must be bought, it is best to get it from the spinning machine in its first state of the single thread, and do the doubling and twisting at home. In this case it can be doubled as many or as few times as it is thought best, and twisted as little as possible.

The next and most important thing is colour, and it is a great advantage if the dyeing can be done at home. There is a strong and well-founded preference among art producers in favor of vegetable dyes, and yet it is possible to use certain of the aniline colours, especially in combination, in safe and satisfactory ways.

Every one who undertakes domestic weaving must know how to dye one or two good colours—black, of course, and the half-black or gray which a good colourist of my acquaintance calls light black; indigo blue equally, of course, in three shades of very dark, medium and light; and red in two shades of dark and light. Here are seven shades from the three dyes, and when we add white we see that the weaver is already very well equipped with a variety of colour. The eight shades can be still further enlarged by clouding and mixing. The mixing can be done in two ways, either by carding two tints together before spinning, or by twisting them together when spun.

Carding together gives a very much better effect in wool, while twisting together is preferable in cotton.

Dark blue and white or medium blue and white wool carded together will give two blue-grays, which cannot be obtained by dyeing, and are most valuable. White and red carded together give a lovely pink, and any shade of gray can be made by carding different proportions of black and white or half-black and white. A valuable gray is made by carding black and white wool together (and by black wool I mean the natural black or brownish wool of black sheep). Mixing of deeply dyed and white wool together in carding is, artistically considered, a very valuable process, as it gives a softness of colour which it is impossible to get in any other way. Clouding—which is almost an indispensable process for rug centres—can be done by winding certain portions of the skeins or hanks of yarn very tightly and closely with twine before they are thrown into the dye-pot. The winding must be close enough to prevent the dye penetrating to the yarn. This means, of course, when the clouding is to be of white and another colour. If it is to be of two shades of one colour, as a light and medium blue, the skein is first dyed a light blue, and after drying is wound as I have described, and thrown again into the dye-pot, until the unwound portions become the darker blue which we call medium.

In a neighbourhood where weaving is a general industry, it is an advantage if some one person who has a general aptitude for dyeing and experiments in colours undertakes it as a business. This is on the principle that a person who does only one thing does it with more facility and better than one who works in various lines. Yet even when there is a neighbourhood dyer, it is, as I have said, almost indispensable that the weaver should know how to dye one or two colours and to do it well.

Supposing that the material, in the shape of coarse cotton warp, black, red or white, has been secured, or that a wool filling in the colours and shades I have described has been prepared for weaving; the loom is then to be warped, at the rate of fifteen or less threads to the inch, according to the coarseness or fineness of the filling.

It is well to weave a half-inch of the cotton warp for filling, as this binds the ends more firmly than wool. Next to this, a border of black and gray in alternate half-inch stripes can be woven, and following that, the body of the rug in dark red, clouded with white. After five feet of the red is woven, a border end of the black and gray is added, and the rug may be cut from the loom, leaving about four inches of the warp at either end as a fringe. If the filling yarn is of good colour, and has been well packed in the weaving, so as to entirely cover the warp, the result will be a good, attractive and durable woolen rug, woven after the Navajo method.

In this one example I have given the bare and simple outline by following which a weaver whose previous work has been only rag carpet weaving can manufacture a good and valuable wool rug. The difference will be simply that of close warping and a substitution of wool for rags. Its value will be considerably increased or lessened by the choice of material both in quality and colour and the closeness and perfection of weaving.

The example given calls for a rug six feet long by three feet in width. To make this very rug a much more important one, it needs only to vary the size of the border. For a larger rug the length must be increased two feet, and the border, which in this case must be of plain or mixed black—that is, it must not be alternated with stripes of gray—must measure one foot at either end. When this is complete, two narrow strips one foot in width, woven with mixed black filling, must be sewed on either side, making a rug eight feet long and five in width. It is not a disadvantage to have this border strip sewn, instead of being woven as a part of the centre. Many of the cheaper Oriental weavings are put together in this way, and as many of the older house-looms will only weave a three-foot width, it is well to know that that need not prevent the production of rugs of considerable size.

Endless variations of this very simple yarn rug can be made with variation in size as well as in colour. Two breadths and two borders, the breadths three feet in width and the borders one foot and six inches, will give a breadth of nine feet, which with a corresponding length will give a rug which will sufficiently cover the floor of an ordinary room. If the centre is skilfully mottled and shaded, it will make a floor spread of beautiful colour, and one which could hardly be found in shops.

ISLE LA MOTTE RUG

ISLE LA MOTTE RUG

The border can be made brighter, as well as firmer and stiffer, by using two filling threads together—a red and a black; or an alternate use of red and black, using two shuttles, will give a lighter and better effect than when black is used exclusively.

After size and weight—or, to speak comprehensively, quality—is secured in this kind of simple weaving, the next most important thing is colour. Of course the colour must be absolutely fast, but I have shown how much variety can be made by shading and mixing of three fast colours, and much more subtle and artistic effects can be produced by weaving alternate threads of different colours. Indeed, the effects obtained by using alternate threads can be varied to almost any extent; as, for instance, a blue and yellow thread—provided the blue is no deeper than the yellow—will give the effect of green to the eye. If the blue is stronger or deeper, as it will almost necessarily be, it will be modified and softened into a greenish blue.

Red and white woven in alternate threads upon a white warp will give an effect of pink, and with this colour for a centre the border should be a good gray.

Of course, alternate throwing of different coloured yarns makes the weaving go more slowly than when one alone is used, and something of the same colour effect can be produced by doubling, instead of alternating. It is, of course, not quite the same, as one colour may show either under or over the other, and the effect is apt to be mottled instead of one of uniform stripes.

The end in view in all these mixtures is variation and liveliness of colour, not an effect of stripes or spots; indeed, these are very objectionable, especially when in contrasted or different colors. A deepening or lightening of the same colour in irregular patches, as will occur in clouded yarns, gives interest, whereas if these cloudings were in strongly contrasted colours they would be crude and unrestful. For this reason, if for no other, it is well to work in few tints, and use contrasting colours only for borders.

To show how much variety is possible in weaving with the few dyes I have named, I will give a number of combinations which will produce good results and be apt to harmonize with ordinary furnishing. By adding orange yellow, which is also one of the simplest and safest of dyes, we secure by mixture with blue a mottled green, and this completes a range of colour which really leaves nothing to be desired.

No. 1. Colours black and red. Border, alternate stripes of black and dark red, as follows: First stripe of black, one and a half inches; second stripe of red, one inch; third stripe of black, one inch; fourth stripe of red, one-half inch; fifth stripe of black, three-quarters inch; sixth stripe of red, one-half inch; seventh stripe of black, half-inch; centre of light red clouded with dark red; reversed border.

No. 2. Colours black and red. Border one foot in depth, of black and red threads woven alternately. Centre dark red, clouded with light red. Woven six feet, with one-foot border at sides as well as ends.

No. 3. Colours red and white. Border seven inches of plain red. Centre of red and white woven alternately.

No. 4. Colours red and black. Border black and red, threads woven alternately, one foot in depth; centre of alternate stripes, two inches in width, of dark red and light red; eight feet in length, with foot-wide side borders, woven with alternate threads of red and black.

No. 5. Colours red and black. Border eighteen inches in depth, of alternate red and black, half-inch stripes. Centre of dark red, clouded with light.

No. 6. Colours gray, red and white, to be woven of doubled, slightly twisted threads. Border one foot in depth at ends and sides, woven of red and gray yarn twisted together. Centre of red and white yarn in twisted threads.

No. 7. Colours red and white. Border of plain red, twenty inches in depth. Centre in alternate half-inch stripes of red and white.

No. 8. Colours blue, red and black. Border four inches deep of black, two inches of plain red, one inch of black. Centre of clouded blue.

No. 9. Colour blue. Border eight inches of darkest blue. Centre of clouded medium and light blue.

No. 10. Colours blue and white. Border of very dark and medium blue woven together. Centre of blue and white yarn woven together.

No. 11. Colours blue and white. Border of medium plain blue. Centre of blue, clouded with white.

No. 12. Colours blue and white. Border of medium blue. Centre of alternate stripes of one inch width blue, and half-inch white stripes.

No. 13. Colours blue and white. Border twelve inches deep of dark blue, clouded with medium. Centre of alternate threads of medium blue and white.

No. 14. Colours blue, black and orange yellow. Border eight inches deep of black, one inch of orange, two of black. Centre, alternate threads of blue and orange.

No. 15. Border of doubled threads of dark blue and orange. Centre of alternate stripes of inch wide light blue and orange woven together, one-half inch stripes of clear orange and white woven together.

In the examples I have given, wherever doubled threads of different colours woven together are used, it must be understood that they are to be slightly twisted, and that the warping for double-filling rugs need not be as close as for single filling. Twelve threads to the inch would be better than fifteen, and perhaps ten or eleven would be still better. Doubled yarn of different colours produces a mottled or broken effect, and this can often be done where the colours of the yarns do not quite satisfy the weaver. If they are too dull, twisting them slackly with a very brilliant tint will give a better shade than if the original tint was satisfactory, but in the same way yarns which are too brilliant can often be made soft and effective by twisting them together with a paler tint. Minute particles of colour brought together in this way are brilliant without crudeness. It is, in fact, the very principle upon which impressionist painters work, giving pure colour instead of mixed, but in such minute and broken bits that the eye confounds them with surrounding colour, getting at the same time the double impression of softness and vivacity.

These examples of fifteen different rugs which can be woven from the three tints of blue, red and orange, together with black and white, do not by any means exhaust the possibilities of variety which can be obtained from three tints. Each rug will give a suggestion for the next, and each may be an improvement upon its predecessor.