In this post, Becky Ashenden takes us on a first-person photo journey through the process of re-weaving an old rag rug from her father’s childhood home in Maine.
This story has been on deck for a whole year – my how time flies!
In November 2020, I finally found the time to take on a long neglected project from my father, David Ashenden, who lives in a lovely older house on the Maine coast way “downeast.” He has fond memories of this place from his childhood, as do I. 
He inherited several worn out rag rugs along with the property, and after I re-wove a larger one of these for him several years ago, he presented me with this charming little challenge of a worn out rug, in case I had time and inclination. We both agreed it was a much better solution than a dumpster! 
Here I have woven some header. I actually put a stick in the first shed of the warp to flatten everything out and make a nice, very smooth edge to start weaving the rug on. And there is my header, all woven. And now let’s start taking that rug apart…
Here I’ve taken the first several picks out and the different colored rags are stuck together, with time and use. 
You can see here that the warp is starting to get a little bit long. 
I can keep tugging to get this pick out. 
Then I can use my scissors to give the old warp a haircut. 
I have wound this first bit onto a shuttle, so here we go! 
I make a mountain with my finger and step on the other treadle. 
And just squeeze it down… 
It is so nice to see how it’s already starting. 
Now I put a temple on, covering our good work here, but pretty soon we will get a better look at it. 
Here is a close-up of the work so far. 
This nice Chevron detail separated easily into its two separate wefts, ready to go back into place in the new rug.
This is a close-up look of an especially bad section of this warp.
That shows that even as the rug was wearing out, it was still – for the most part – serving its purpose as a decorative floor cover, continually being walked on. This kind of wear certainly makes it difficult to vacuum!
Here we are, approaching the second chevron stripe, and the big tangled mess. 
We need to give regular haircuts now and then, when the old warp yarns become too long to easily pull out the wefts. 
When we pull apart some of these “white” rags, we discover that there is some color inside there. Perhaps these rags were 100% light blue when the rug was first made. 
Here is a bit of that blue color showing through in the new rug. 
Now finally, here is the eagerly awaited big tangle. But it’s not really tangled at all: as you can see, the right-hand selvedge shows exactly what order all of the rags are in, so we will use that as our guide. 
How about that? The big tangle came out all in one piece! Now we will put it on the shuttle and proceed with weaving. 
Ready to start throwing the shuttle? 
But wait! What about all of those pretty colors we were discovering inside the rags? Let’s try ironing these rags out flat so we can see some of the hidden, original fabric on the inside. 
But wait! What about all of those pretty colors we were discovering inside the rags? Let’s try ironing these rags out flat so we can see some of the hidden, original fabric on the inside. 
But wait! What about all of those pretty colors we were discovering inside the rags? Let’s try ironing these rags out flat so we can see some of the hidden, original fabric on the inside. 
Oh boy, what wonderful discoveries! There were obviously many different bits of fabric used here and many of them are just very short pieces, and somehow all of those places are still magically stuck together, so I didn’t tug on them too hard and now we have a big shuttle full of our big tangle all flattened out and ready to make new again in our rug. 
And, here’s what it looks like woven up, not much of a tangle anymore! 
The original keeps getting smaller, and now we have a little pile of warp shards. 
Now that we have entered the tedious (yet kind of fun) ironing out of the old rags, I feel the necessity to continue this process for that middle section of the rug, so it has some consistency to it. 
Ooh! – What a lovely pile of ironed ancient rags on the floor. I can only wonder how old these rags might be, possibly 100 years or more old, and what clothing might they represent being left over from whom? We can only wonder. 
Now look at those vibrant colors in the weaving! 
It helps to hold a foot on the little rug to have something to pull against. 
White faded rags turning into vibrant colors! 
White faded rags turning into vibrant colors! 
Shorter and shorter 
Longer and longer 
Last chevron bits pulled out 
Oooh – such a little bit of the last really worn-out section left, but we can do it. 
Here’s a look at the whole underside of the rug on the loom 
We gauged the length of the warp just right. It was made from old quills of leftover rug warp that have sat around for many years. You can see a few of my repairs at the back, and how close to the shafts the end of the warp has come. 
AND — Here comes the rug off the loom!
The finished rug was hand delivered as a present to my father last winter. It has now come full circle to the same house where it may reside another 100 years!
Re-weaving an old rug is a wonderful adventure I would recommend to any of you out there who weave. If you take this on, we would love it if you would share your re-weaving adventure with us.
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