Rug 3 Detail Felted rugs by Toos Omtzigt
I made a series of ~ 2x3 ft floor rugs in the course of about a month. The rugs are numbered in the order they were made. Rug 1, 4, and 5 are mostly Icelandic wool; Rugs 2 and 3 a combination of C1/Pelssau and Merino. Designs are all my own, using prefelts and yarn to create design patterns.
Rugs 2 and 3 were made during a 3-day nomadic rug felting course with Mary Reichert at the North House Folk School in MN. Rug 2 was created by placing the design pieces on top of unfelted wool, followed by felting the entire unit. For the other rugs I did the opposite, placing the unfelted wool on top of the design pieces and then felting it all together.
Rugs 4 and 5 are essentially the same, but rug 4 was dyed with some left-over cochineal bath. It’s a bit red, but it works well as a door mat on the red-brown wooden floor we have. I have also thought of stitching around the design features in the red rug (maybe some day I will do that).
One interesting note is that I found that using zigzags was a good way to create basic repetitive geometric shapes that are easily cut from prefelts. Apparently, it is a common way to depict mountains in nomadic rug designs…. And now I cannot stop seeing mountains!
I made a series of ~ 2x3 ft floor rugs in the course of about a month. The rugs are numbered in the order they were made. Rug 1, 4, and 5 are mostly Icelandic wool; Rugs 2 and 3 a combination of C1/Pelssau and Merino. Designs are all my own, using prefelts and yarn to create design patterns.
Rugs 2 and 3 were made during a 3-day nomadic rug felting course with Mary Reichert at the North House Folk School in MN. Rug 2 was created by placing the design pieces on top of unfelted wool, followed by felting the entire unit. For the other rugs I did the opposite, placing the unfelted wool on top of the design pieces and then felting it all together.
Rugs 4 and 5 are essentially the same, but rug 4 was dyed with some left-over cochineal bath. It’s a bit red, but it works well as a door mat on the red-brown wooden floor we have. I have also thought of stitching around the design features in the red rug (maybe some day I will do that).
One interesting note is that I found that using zigzags was a good way to create basic repetitive geometric shapes that are easily cut from prefelts. Apparently, it is a common way to depict mountains in nomadic rug designs…. And now I cannot stop seeing mountains!
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