Penny Rugs anyone?

I stumbled across this old hobby recently in an online blog posting and its tweeked my curiosity in wanting to try to make one. Anyone ever done this? I don't want to purchase a 'kit' as they are quite expensive and will look 'precut', but I'm sure the result would be quite nice. Anyone ever tried?

Re: Penny Rugs anyone?

Claire when I was a little girl I made 'peg rugs' by cutting strips of old wool fabric then pushing/threading them onto a hessian backing with a hook.
I have also made rugs by looping strands of precut wool onto a printed base to make a patterned rug , not sure if this is the same thing

Re: Penny Rugs anyone?

I think we used to push the wool through with apeg, the old wooden pegs with two legs, you cut one off and sharpened the end so you could push with it.

Re: Penny Rugs anyone?

The top of the peg fitted into your palm and was comfortable. They were warm rugs for the kitchen, our house had a kitchen with a blacklead grate and the back kitchen or sculleryhad the sink in it, we also had a middle room for whatever you liked and a front room we only used for high days and Sundays, Grannie would light a fire and her and me would sit in there watching people go to the cemetary with flowers, we were people watchers.

Re: Penny Rugs anyone?

Here is picture example I got off the net which looks on the 'homemade' side vs the precut bought patterned ones.

Re: Penny Rugs anyone?

My wife informed me that she thinks the name of the kits you are referring to are called readicut so after a bit of googling etc we came up with the following site.
You can, if interested, order a catalogue, hope this helps.


www.readicut.co.uk/catalogue_request.asp

Re: Penny Rugs anyone?

It looks like it is made of felt and a bit like the mat my grandmother used to put the teapot on, on the dining table.
I do remember helping to make a rug with pieces cut from two old coats and pushed into hessian...brown and beige I think

Re: Penny Rugs anyone?

Claire that all is what I would call felt appliqué work and nothing to do with rugs

Here is an exapmle of felt applique...

Re: Penny Rugs anyone?

Nice warm memories there Annie
Didn't we call them rag rugs or something like that? Usually oval or round shaped, made out of old clothes?

Re: Penny Rugs anyone?

I remember my mom making a try at doing rag rugs. I think I still have in a box somewhere the attachments she worked with to make the rags 'coil' to sew.

From what I read about the penny rugs, you can use 'wool-felt' or wash old wool sweaters in hot and dry hot to 'melt' the fibers together, or old mens (or womens) suits to cut the circles out of. The finish product is not of a large size (they do mention putting them under tea pots or candle holders for decoration).

The large pieces I've seen are used for table runners or even wall hangings do look more along the line of felt precuts (too perfect).

There is just something about the 'old' school look that is drawing me in looking so 'pretty'.