Handmade Rag Rugs

When I was a little girl, our summer cottage was down the red dirt lane from an elderly aunt's. I think it was that early in my life that I fell in love with old furniture and antique items.  Leota (Oat for short) was widowed at a  young age and was left fairly comfortably. Her home was decorated so differently than mine, most of her furnishings came from estate sales and antique stores.  It was at her home that I remember looking at the huge rag rug.  I was only about three years old, but I remember my mother having tea, and I was set on the rug to play with lace edged hankies and little cedar box with a hinged lid and a little brass lock.  I remember the hankies smelled of lavender and cedar.  I remember laying on my belly, with sunlight shining in the picture window, while I traced the fabrics that made up the  the colourful strips in the recycled wool braids and played with the lacy bits of linen.

I have attempted braided rugs but I have never made much headway.  I have, however, made several crocheted rugs of cotton sheeting.  Crocheted rugs are instant gratification.  I made this 3’ round rug for my bathroom on a lazy Saturday, just before the new year. 

My rugs are made of cotton or poly-cotton sheets.  I keep a lookout for them at yard sales, or second hand stores. I don’t worry about patterns because they are not seen, it’s the colours and colour combinations that are important.

Rag rugs look great in any room, they wash fine.  The little ones will wash in the washing machine, the bigger rugs, I soak in the tub, scrub them with a little hand brush and let dry in the sun.  The older they get the more I like them, it is as though their colours wash out a bit, and they blend easily with my old furniture. 

Eren at Vintage Chica has a great tutorial on how to make your own rag rug.

My New Old Dishes

I love mismatched china, as a matter of fact, I find charm in mismatched anything; old wooden pressed-back chairs, antique silver flatware, lace-edged pillow cases and dishes.  I like my collections to look like they have evolved rather than bought as a complete set.  It gives me a special pleasure to point to one piece and say, “that belonged to my great- grandmother, or great aunt, or mother-in-law.” Or “I bought that piece at a little place on the coast of Maine, or Florida or Prince Edward Island.”  I guess I am just a sentimentalist.

For a couple of years now, my everyday dishes have been an evolving mishmash of floral English everyday- wear.  The colours and patterns are fairly consistent; I collect dishes with creamy backgrounds, pinks, yellows and turquoise; mostly from the 1940’s.   I have a variety of platters and serving dishes that make my table look happy.  I have a confession to make, I love hand washing my beautiful collection in my new old-house, with its big white porcelain sink.

 This fall, I decided that the dishes I’ve been using are wonderful for spring and summer, but I needed something a little heartier for the fall and winter.  I didn’t want “Christmas” dishes because the season goes by so quickly, and for those special dinners, I have beautiful English China.  I set my sites on finding odd pieces of transferware.

Transferware is usually available in shades of blues, browns and reds, but occasionally, one can find purples and greens as well.   Transferware became popular in the 19^th Century, as English china makers developed a method of transferring pictures from copper plates to tissue and then it is firing it onto pottery.  Prior to the development of this process, only the rich had access to hand painted dishes. Some of the traditional patterns are I am drawn to are scenes of castles and villages, but altogether no matter what the scenes are the table looks terrific.

The rule I have in collecting these old dishes, is that I will not exceed $10 for any given piece.  I have to admit, I have broken that rule more than once for pitchers and serving dishes.  When I visited my favourite antique store, I found several plates marked at more than $45.  Some of these were exceptional, but for everyday use, my $10 limit seemed more than adequate.  I peruse the Sunday Flea Market, the little antique stores, Fredericton Anti-Poverty,  the Salvation Army Thrift Stores and Value Village in search of these dishes

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