Confessions of a Rugmaker....

Some of you admired the Celtic rug I showed you the other day.  I can't claim to have designed it. It was found in an old Dover book.  Usually, once they start printing Dover books, they keep printing them.  I imagine that you could find it at the Alibris website as a used book if you can't find it new.  It  is called "Celtic Charted Designs" by Co Spinhoven.

The page that you see here is a chart for half of the rug....I have a LONG way to go on this one.

I love designing my own rugs, but if I see a design that I like, I am not above following someone else's chart.  If I do, I will always tell you where I got the design. I think that is only fair.

If you are just starting rug work, I think that this is the way to go.

This one is an English book and it has a lot of really nice designs that are mostly pretty simple to follow.

This Dover book is the one that got me started making mini rugs.  after 30 years, it is still one of my favorites.  Don't expect instructions.  It is simply many charts in black and white.  It has color recommendations for each chart.

The one that I am showing you here is the fourth one that I have done from this pattern...Each time I used different colors and each time it turned out great.

Love this book. 

Now, about designing your own....This is the most fun. 

See the rug to the left?  It is a small photo of a Tibetan rug...From that, I did the chart at the bottom right.  And almost half a rug at the top right. 

Notice, I changed the shape of the rug  and eliminated the things sticking out from the edges of the inner border. 

When you design your own patterns, you get to do what you want.

Here's the book that the idea came from.  I am a fan of Tibetan designs.  They are simpler than Persian or Chinese usually, but still complicated enough to catch your interest.

This particular book came from a used book shop here in town.  I imagine it is out of print now.  If you ever find it, grab it.  It is in full color!  No black and white photos at all.

Now that you know about these books, you should be able to make any kind of rug you want for your mini room.  I should mention that it does help to have a program for your computer like PC Stitch Pro 9.  It is so much faster to do a rug pattern when you can design a quarter of the rug.  Then with this kind of program, you can flip and turn the quarter to do the other three quarters of the rug in no time.

I am going back to work now.  Just a few more days and then things will be back to normal....Kind of....Sort of....

See you tomorrow.