Rags to Rugs!

Teaching a textile art unit gave me a perfect opportunity to clean out unwanted clothes from my craft closet. I had meant to use husband's old shirts for quilts, but never got around to it.

I was taught to make a braided rug when I was young, by my adopted grandmother, but the task of sewing the braids together was so labor intensive, that I never did it as an adult. Luckily there is a no sew method, that makes things much easier, and probably stronger.  It requires four strands of fabric (1 1/2" to 2" wide). I tied the four strands together.

Then I took the first strand at the far left and went under the 2nd, over the 3rd, and under the 4th, ending with a small tug. I repeated the processes until about 5 inches of woven strands gave me enough wiggle room to wrap a small spiral.  Then I continued with the under over under pattern, except I ended by tucking it down through a loop from the previous weave.

When a strand got too short, we cut a little button hole slit in the end and stuck the end of another strand through the hole. That strand also had a slit cut into the end so that the other end (of that long strand) could thread through it and be pulled tight. This was much less bulky than trying to tie the two ends together.

And so the rug grew as each strand connected to the existing spiral. You may need to pull a little to make the loops big enough to push the strand through. But it comes along pretty quickly. And once my students could work independently, I could sit back and watch.  I put a piece of tape on the top to remember that we were spiraling counter clockwise and keep the pattern and shape tidy. Some students made personal rugs that were the sizes of hot pads, and others worked together on bigger projects.

Aluminum Foil Sculptures

This project was part of a lesson about sculpture in the round. The Family and Consumer Science teacher had covered the bulletin board with aluminum foil to look like a cookie sheet, and then she had students make paper and foam cookies to cover it. When it was my turn to do the bulletin board, I took down the foil, and gave a piece to each student. We felt how flat it was and talked about the difference between two dimensional and three dimensional art. Then they were given the task to make a 3D sculpture from the 2D foil. Here are the results.

 The horse was the only piece that required a little pipe cleaner armature to cover. If they were going to make bigger pieces, I'm sure we'd use wire structure to start. Mostly, this is an instant gratification type of lesson and one I have already referred back to several times to help them remember my students difference between 2D and 3D art.