Religion
In reply to the discussion: Religious Symbolism in the Islamic Prayer Rug [View all]Mariana
(14,858 posts)When I was about 20, I asked her to teach me, so I know how to do it, too. I've made some small ones, and I've used the same technique to make chair pads. I'd like to make a large one for my living room. It takes a great deal of fabric to make a room-sized braided rug, so I'll have to find a source to buy it at a reasonable price. Wool fabric is expensive. She used to buy ends and remnants and seconds and such in volume directly from the woolen mills. Most of those mills have closed.
She also hooked rugs with narrow strips of fabric pulled through burlap. This was how she made hallway and stair runners. She didn't make them with any particular design or pattern, but worked them in rows of random colors. She taught me how to make rugs that way, too.
When my grandmother died, I claimed all of her rug-making tools. No one else wanted them.