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Books About Life on a Farm Written Especially for People Who Like to Read! "Highly recommended reading." The Midwest Book Review Reviews & Readers' Comments |
LeAnn R. Ralph Rural Route 2 Author E6689 970th Ave. Colfax, WI 54730 (715) 308-6336 |
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by LeAnn R. Ralph I've never really thought of rag rugs as rare, handcrafted items. I know Mom never thought of them as rare, hand-crafted items, either. We always kept a rag rug or two in the porch on the farm for wiping off our muddy shoes and boots. Several more were scattered around the kitchen and living room to protect high traffic areas. I'm sure the sight of handwoven rugs covering the porch floor of a farmhouse, waiting to be wiped upon by muddy shoes and boots, would be enough to cause any self-respecting craft or gift shop owner in the Twin Cities, Chicago - or any other urban area for that matter - to go into cardiac arrest. I know I almost went into cardiac arrest when I spied handwoven rugs for sale when I lived in the southern part of the state. The prices were astronomical. Knowing the prices, though, doesn't prevent me from using two rugs I own that were made from strips sewn together by my mother. I know from observation and experience these rugs are practically indestructible. They can survive years of wear and tear, countless washings, and miles of foot traffic. In fact, my two rag rugs are much sturdier than the commercially-produced braided rugs I purchased after we moved here. The braided rugs looked lovely. They protected my carpeting in high traffic areas. And they held up for about a month. Then the stitching unraveled, and they fell apart. I returned them and got my money back. I can remember watching my mother sew strips of cloth together to make the rag rugs. Sometimes she'd use the sewing machine, and sometimes she'd sew them together by hand. No material ever went to waste around our house - old sheets, blouses, pajamas, work shirts, bedspreads, you name it. If it was made out of cloth and couldn't be used or worn anymore, it probably got torn into strips to make a rag rug. After my mother had sewn the strips together, she'd roll the strips into large balls about as big around as a basketball. Mom would divide the sewn rags into color groups. Pale pastels for one rug, white for another, bright colors for a third. When she had accumulated enough rolls to make several rugs, she'd take them to someone who owned a loom. It was rather interesting when the rugs came back to look at them and identify particular garments. "Why - there's the old pink bedspread!" and that sort of thing. One especially pretty blue rug was woven out of my dad's worn out work overalls. The legs of his work pants, just above the knee, always gave out first because handling thousands of hay bales tends to wear out denim rather quickly. After Mom had patched and repatched Dad's pants, she gave up and a whole stack of them went into making the rag rug. It was a handsome rug, sort of a variegated pale and darker blue. I know my mother never thought of rag rugs as something rare and valuable. If someone had told her city folk would be willing to pay $50, $75, or more for those kinds of rugs, she wouldn't have believed them. She'd probably have said something like "Don't be ridiculous - they're rags!" And so, I still use my two rag rugs. One is white and the other is various shades of pink. I'm reasonably sure the material in the white rug started out as bed sheets. I don't know what the pink rug was in its former life. My mother died in 1985, which tells you how long those rugs have been around. I probably ought to mount them as wall hangings, or something, to preserve them. But I'm afraid to do that. My mother would probably haunt me because - after all - they're just rags. |
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