fibermoon.com - How the rugs are made

CREATING THE DESIGN I make my rugs from photos I take. This works well for people like me who cannot draw. Here I started with a photo of a painting by my father-in-law, Vincent Hennebury. I take a digital photo and import it to a program called "Rapid Resizer", which allows me to size the photo to my finished rug size. This little program saves me lots of frustration and time (see my resources page to find the link to this great program). My finished rug will be 27 x 20.
TRANSFERRING THE DESIGN The rug is made on a frame where the base cloth (Monks Cloth) is stretched tight and held in place with carpet tack strips. The design is transferred onto the monks cloth using hardware cloth. The full size cartoon design is traced on the hardware cloth and then placed on the monks cloth and retraced. The end result is an accurately drawn full size cartoon. The pins are used to keep the hardware cloth in place while tracing. Once this step is completed, the monks cloth is ready for punching.
SELECTING THE COLORS I dye my wool to get the colors and shades that I want. You cannot buy ready dyed wool yarn with the subtle color changes needed for shading. I use the immersion technique with ProChem Dyes, and find the process easy and inexpensive.
PUNCHING THE RUG The wool yarn is punched through the monks cloth backing with the punch needle. I use the Oxford Punch Needle because it is simple and fool-proof to use. Rug punching is faster than traditional rug hooking, but it still takes a long time to finish a rug.
PUNCHING PROGRESS Initial progress has been made with the rug. This is the underside or finished side of the rug. Some areas have not yet had the yarn trimmed. The progress looks unruly until it has been trimmed and snipped.
MORE PUNCHING PROGRESS Further progress, and the design begins to take shape.
THE COMPLETED RUG DESIGN The finished rug at 21 x 28. Now all that's left is taking the rug off the frame and finishing the turned under edge.
Press the rug to make it lay flat. Wet a towel and place it between the rug and the iron. With the iron on a high setting, press the entire rug. Resaturate the towel as needed.
Next, trim the excess monks cloth, and...
... pin the folded-over cloth into place. Lastly, all that remains is stitching down the cloth on the back of the rug. You can use the rug on the floor, or you can hang it on the wall to enjoy.