Are you shopping for a color, or perhaps particular design? The rugs, both available and sold, are categorized according to some of the major characteristics found in search terms. (Categories are listed in alphabetical order.)
- Beach Rugs
- Black and White Rugs
- Black and White and Red Rugs
- Blue Rugs
- Brown Rugs
- Gold Rugs
- Green Rugs (also Emerald)
- Lime Rugs (the color, not the fruit)
- Log Cabin Rugs
- Orange Rugs
- Pink Rugs
- Purple Rugs
- Red Rugs
- Spiral Rugs
- Striped Rugs
- Tessellations
- Turquoise Rugs
Beach Rugs
A beach rug, in my mind, is colorful, casual, and if possible, somehow nautical in nature. It might be something you didn’t want to see all year round, but would love for the amount of time you spend at your place on the coast.
“August,” the turquoise, pink and orange square rug that may be in the list above or the one below when you read this, was designed to be a rug for a beach house in Kill Devil Hills, NC. Per its name, I selected the hottest colors I had in my stash and let them tell me what they wanted to be.
All of the nautilus rugs qualify as beach rugs. It’s just a matter of finding the colors that suite your taste.Here are some beach rugs that have found homes:
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Black and White Rugs
Black and white rugs are fun to make. I stash black and white fabric separately, until I have a full bin. Then I sort it into six or eight different shades, depending on the amount of black in the fabric. Black and white rugs are striking. They are not always the easiest rugs to live with: they won’t hide much dirt, and they will command attention. However, if that’s what you want to do, there’s nothing better!
And here are some black and white rugs that have found their home with a collector:
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Black and White and Red Rugs
Click on the thumbnail for details.
I’ve made one true black and white and red rug, and one red and gray rug that might catch your eye if “black and white and red rug” is what you are looking for, and a few others that might fall into this category, or at least spark some decorating ideas.
And here are some rugs that have found homes:
Any of these can be used as starting points for a rug made to your specifications. However, because the rugs are made from recycled tshirts (among other fabrics), they can never be exactly duplicated.
Blue Rugs
The blue rugs above are available to buy: (click on the thumbnail for a larger image with details)
My taste in blues runs to the teals and turquoises once it leaves Royal; I stopped using navy and similar blues several years ago because
- it was too hard to distinguish them from black in poor light
- finding companionable colors for non-teal blues required an entirely different storage system for my raw material
OTOH, a commissioned set of rugs in navy blues and neutrals made me think differently about neutrals, and maybe one day I’ll revisit my decision about navy. I do play with denim, which has its own requirements for companions.
The hand made rag rugs below have found their home with a collector:
Any of these can be used as starting points for a rug made to your specifications. However, because the rugs are made from recycled tshirts (among other fabrics), they can never be exactly duplicated.
Images for the Blue Rugs board on Pinterest
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Brown Rugs
Brown is the ultimate blending neutral, covering the gamut of shades from 1 to 10 with more interest and variety than gray. It can complement almost any color on the color wheel, when selected carefully. Brown rugs are easy to live with.
Unfortunately for my ability to product brown rugs, brown is not a very common color in clothing, found more often in trousers than in recycled t shirts. When found, it is often faded and worn. It takes a while to rebuild stash when a brown rug leaves the studio.
Here are some brown rugs that have found homes:
Any of these can be used as starting points for a rug made to your specifications. However, because the rugs are made from recycled tshirts (among other fabrics), they can never be exactly duplicated.
Pinterest Study Board for Brown
Gold Rugs
Gold is a fun but touchy accent color to use in a rag rug. When it appears in the form of a recycled t shirt, it’s often pretty close to the same color–there aren’t many shades of “gold” in t shirts. Pink and Yellow Log Cabin is the brightest rug I’ve made, and even in that, the yellow centers are only a fraction of the total area. But they sure jump out at you!
Here are some gold rugs that have found homes:
Any of these can be used as starting points for a rug made to your specifications. However, because the rugs are made from recycled tshirts (among other fabrics), they can never be exactly duplicated.
Pinterest Board
This is my study board for gold and yellow. It’s a little longer on “gold” than I can actually use in a rug, but some of the images show interesting blends and accents.
end board
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Green Rugs
In this post, I’m talking about the color of a green rug, rather than “green” the state of being one with the environment, although all of my rugs fall into that category, too. Green recycled fiber ranges from the most acid lime to the kindest, most muted tone of moss in the northern (and southern) latitudes, blending nearly seamlessly into gray and brown, or contrasting vividly with almost any other color on the wheel.
I like green. Green is easy to find in the world of recycled fiber, but because it is not a primary color, it’s important to be careful about its undertones. Warm greens and cool greens can surprise me, and need to be sorted in natural daylight, not under any form of artificial light. Green rugs can be used in any room in the home, and most of the time, blend easily with existing color choices.
Here are some green rugs that have found homes:
Any of these can be used as starting points for a rug made to your specifications. However, because the rugs are made from recycled tshirts (among other fabrics), they can never be exactly duplicated.
Pinterest Study Board for Green
Lime Rugs
In this post, I’m talking about the color of a lime green rug, rather than a rug that looks like a cross section of a citrus fruit. I don’t make those. I’m listing “lime rugs” separately from green rugs because that’s how people look for them, and I’m assuming they want the color, not the fruit, because no-one searches for “lemon rugs.”
Lime is a difficult, touchy and demanding color, but wow, can it get your attention! Lime rugs are easier to live with than the equivalently bright oranges. Lime is not very common in the fiber stream and tends to follow fashion trends by three or four years. That said, once you’re tired of it, you want it gone!
Here are some lime rugs that have found homes:
Any of these can be used as starting points for a rug made to your specifications. However, because the rugs are made from recycled tshirts (among other fabrics), they can never be exactly duplicated.
Pinterest Study Board for Green, including Lime
Log Cabin Rugs
The rugs shown above have been created according to a modified “log cabin” pattern from quilting and are available to buy: (click on the thumbnail for a larger image with details)
Log Cabin rugs are simple to knit, once the color management and shifting has been worked out. Some of these rugs have fewer units than you might recognize from first glance.
The hand made rag rugs below have found their home with a collector:
Any of these can be used as starting points for a rug made to your specifications. However, because the rugs are made from recycled tshirts (among other fabrics), they can never be exactly duplicated.
Orange Rugs
Orange is a difficult color to use in home decor. The biggest source of orange fiber is recycled t shirts, and those garments are not known for their subletly. I have a substantial stash of fluorescent orange from a child’s soccer uniforms and no idea at all of how to use it. That said, the general category of “orange” also encompasses the ever-useful rusts, peaches and coral. Unfortunately, men’s clothes are the largest source of “rust” tones, and men hang on to their clothing much longer than women do.Sigh. We cope.Here are some orange rugs that have found homes:
Any of these can be used as starting points for a rug made to your specifications. However, because the rugs are made from recycled tshirts (among other fabrics), they can never be exactly duplicated.
Pinterest Study Board for Orange
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Pink Rugs
Pink encompasses a wide range of shades and tones, from deep raspberry to the palest coral. Pink rugs can be created for any room in the house, from nursery to den. Because people don’t look for “peach,” I’ve included rag rugs with peachy content in this category as well. Pink plays well with a lot of other colors, from bright red to the palest pastels, and especially with green. Pink sheets are readily available in the thrift shop market, and have become a major component of the new “cowgirl” series of twill rugs hand woven denim and pink.Here are some pink rugs that have found homes:
Incidentally, the rug shown in the header on this page was woven from the colors pulled for the Pink and Tan Floating Square shown in the gallery above. In some ways, the colors are more powerful in the woven rug, but they blend better in the knit version.
Any of these can be used as starting points for a rug made to your specifications. However, because the rugs are made from recycled tshirts (among other fabrics), they can never be exactly duplicated.
Pinterest Board
For the longest time (ha! less than a year…), I resisted creating a Pinterest board for Pink, but I finally gave in. There’s too much interesting about pink that doesn’t belong on red or purple or orange.And the images below are documentation of some of the pink things I notice in the real world.
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Purple Rugs
Click on any of the thumbnails for details.
Purple is my favorite color, but it’s relatively rare in the stream of recycled tshirts and other old clothing that comes my way. Purple garments tend, on the whole, to be smaller than garments of other colors. I carefully save up purples, lavenders, lilacs, and all other varieties of red + blue until I have a full bin, and then a new rug takes shape.
Here are some purple rugs that have found homes:
Any of these can be used as starting points for a rug made to your specifications. However, because the rugs are made from recycled t shirts (among other fabrics), they can never be exactly duplicated.
Images for the Purple study board on my Pinterest account
I collect color information and am, for the moment, stashing images posted to my Pinterest color boards on the appropriate rug page.
I think this combination would be overwhelming in a rug, but perhaps center eyes of pink, then purple, then a generous amount of olive green would work.
Red Rugs
Click on any of the thumbnails for details.
Red is the most common color in the stream of old clothes that comes my way. No matter how many red rag rugs I weave or knit, the drawer of red fiber is always full. I will run low on pink, and often on purple, but never red. It’s fun to find new combinations that work. Diana Vreeland said, “Pink is the navy blue of India,” and I think I could add, “Red is the navy blue of the recycled tshirt world.”
Here are some red rugs that have found homes:
Any of these can be used as starting points for a rug made to your specifications. However, because the rugs are made from recycled tshirts (among other fabrics), they can never be exactly duplicated.
Images for a board about Red on Pinterest
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Spiral Rugs
I saw a spiral rug in Mason Dixon Knitting when I first started knitting rag rugs. I modified the pattern slightly–short rows–to make the arms curve more easily into the spiral shape, and discovered that three arms gave me a way to play with color. Then I flipped the curve and made a triple spiral rug, and a bit later, created the nautilus rug according to the same pattern, assembled differently.
The two squarish spiral rugs are knit according to a different pattern, but if you’re looking for spiral rag rugs, you might like them.
Very fun.
Here are some spiral rugs that have found homes:
Any of these can be used as starting points for a rug made to your specifications. However, because the rugs are made from recycled tshirts (among other fabrics), they can never be exactly duplicated.
Pinterest Spirals Study Board
Spiral Images from Pinterest Study Board
I’m always thinking of new ways to configure spirals for rugs; the spiral shape in popular and easy to construct. Triskeles (triple spirals), from Celtic ornamentation, were the first modification, and then the nautilus shape. Lately I’ve been studying seashells up close, looking for additional shapes to knit.
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Striped Rugs
The rugs shown above have been created from straight stripes (not spiraled) and are available to buy: (click on the thumbnail for a larger image with details)
Striped rugs are simple to knit, once the color management and shifting has been worked out. Some of these rugs have more units than you might recognize from first glance.
The hand made rag rugs below have found their home with a collector:
Any of these can be used as starting points for a rug made to your specifications. However, because the rugs are made from recycled tshirts (among other fabrics), they can never be exactly duplicated.
Tessellations
I played with a lot of tessellated patterns when I first started knitting rag rugs; most of them have sold and I have moved on to different pattern sources.
Any of these can be used as starting points for a rug made to your specifications. However, because the rugs are made from recycled tshirts (among other fabrics)*, they can never be exactly duplicated.
Turquoise Rugs
The turquoise rugs above are available to buy: (click on the thumbnail for a larger image with details)
I love turquoise in a rug. Turquoise, its neighbor teal, and both the royals, blue and purple–unbeatable.
The hand made rag rugs below have found their home with a collector:
Any of these can be used as starting points for a rug made to your specifications. However, because the rugs are made from recycled tshirts (among other fabrics), they can never be exactly duplicated.
