This is a question, but I have a hard time expressing this in a clear way that people can understand and not think I am crazy (-ier), so I am not expecting an answer. Hoping, maybe, but not really expecting.
In cleaning out my father’s house, I came upon one of aunt Lillian’s (wait, no, it was aunt, um, hold on, I will get it) throw rugs, which, sadly, was half rotted away from sitting on the basement floor, which leaked in heavy rains. It was about 4’ in diameter, with a fairly simple graphic design, and I remembered it well.
The distinctive thing about this rug was the construction. Its body was a bulk of something like bias tape which was pulled and stitched into a coherent bunching such that the walking surface (this rug was the same on both sides) would be walking on the edge of the tape.
I cannot recall having seen this type of construction anywhere else. It looks rather labor-intensive. Has anyone else ever seen or heard of this kind of rugwork?
Sounds like a punch rug to me. A canvas is mounted on a frame and the maker uses a large pointy tool to punch heavy yarn or bias tape through. It probably lasted on that floor so long because it was backed with a hand smeared rubbery stuff that I forgot the name of. It was a big thing back in the 70’s if you want to do more research.
Oh, wait, the same on both sides. Too late to delete, sorry.
It was like she took the tape, stitched a thread through the center of it and pulled it tight to gather the tape into a bunch, in a way that the bunching was stitched together in a consistent mass so that the outside edge of the tape was the surface. As far as I could tell, there was no kind of backing. It was like a ruffle so tightly packed as to be smooth.
I do not. I will see if I can find a cousin who might still have one that is intact. I talked to my mother and she reaffimed my perception of how they were made. It appears my aunt (cousin once removed) invented the technique (apparently she was skilled enough at textile arts to have once made a corset for Eleanor Roosevelt) and it is quite labor intensive and hard/impossible to mechanize, so probably no one will ever see one of these.
That tape was ‘ruched’ (I think that’s how you spell it.)
A hooked rug is done that way with wool strips.
I have one that was my maternal grandmothers. It’s gotta be 70yrs old. A design of something like roses. Faded a bit but still fully intact.
No wear but on one edge caused by a chewing puppy.
Yeah, that is the right basic term for it. When I image search on it, though, most examples of ruching I see are fairly slack. These gathers were snug up tight so that the edges of the tape formed an essentially smooth flat surface with millimeter spacing between the turns (there were no straight lines in it).
There’s a particular base to make hooked rugs on. Some kinda stiffened fabric in little square windows.
My rug is hooked on Monks cloth. A loosely woven cotton. It shrinks went you first put it in hot water and pulls the stitches tighter. The rug gets substantially smaller after that. And everything squishes together.
