Percy's Rug

 Percy and Christiana gave me two shopping bags of old t-shirts to use for weaving rugs.  Usually I cut my rug strips into continuous lengths.  This gives large sections of a particular colour and because you can trim and overlap the ends, you get a fairly uniform texture.

  This time though, I cut the strips into loops.  I stretched the loops and then looped them together randomly.  This creates little textured knobs where the loops are joined, but also gives an interesting colour variety.  I decided to try this for two reasons.  One, I wanted to try something new and two, I didn't have a backup selection of shirts in those colours, so regulated stripes was a little bit risky for symmetrical results.

I've decided that I really like this technique.  The rug was fun to weave.   The loops are easy to interlock, you stick one loop inside the other and then loop it back inside itself and pull.  The only issue was of course the helper kitties who saw grand opportunities to play with lengths of t-shirt loops.  

I started out by trimming and overlapping when one shuttle ended and I started a new one.  However I realized it was much easier to just pop the new shuttle through the ending loop and then slide it through the looped end of the new length.  A quick tug and the lengths were joined seamlessly.

I wasn't sure how many loops I'd need.   One t-shirt didn't work because I don't think it was cotton.  When you stretch the t-shirt material, it lengthens and curls in on itself, making a great weaving yarn.   This shirt material didn't do that.  However, the rest were perfect.  I had enough, with a couple of t-shirts left over to use in another project.

I have to say that weaving is a good task right now because it requires some concentration and thought.   It is weird and stressful times out there these days and focusing on an encompassing project is not a bad thing.