The World's Smallest Rug......

By guest blogger Charlene Scott

I am calling this little Persian beauty the World's Smallest Rug as it is pretty cute and tiny compared to anything else I've done.  Too big to be a coaster and too small to walk on, perhaps this little gem is perfect for a doll house or a table topper.  I won this rug at the silent auction at the Nova Scotia Guild Rug School this past May.   I bid $15 and later saw the back of the tag and found it had been originally purchased for $10. There are no dates with it so I have no idea what its age might be.  I bid on a whim and got it.  

Written on the pattern was #211-"KIRMAN"- Jacqueline Hansen, Scarborough, Maine CR-25  It is stamped on verel which I have never hooked on so  it was interesting to have the experience but I'm not inclined to use it again.   Also because it was stamped it did not run neatly along the grain.  This meant when I did the outer edge, I had to keep jumping  rows to keep the line straight.  

I hooked it with #3 cut wool all compliments of my stash. I outlined the yellow flower centers with a single strand pulled from a length of dark blue wool yarn, sort of like separating the strands from embroidery thread.   Although cute as a button on its own, I  felt it needed a little something to frame it and Christine sells factory made decorative rug fringe that  fit the bill.  The tassels were too long for the size of this rug and needed to be trimmed so I taped it to the edge of a table and then cut the tassels to uniform length.  

I felt the fringe  showed  too much white for the proportion of the rug so to break it up I threaded one ply of the wool I used for the whipped edge and a piece of the wool I used to outline the yellow flower centers through the cotton fringe band using my whipping needle.   I then put binding tape on the back and finished it off per the usual.    I really enjoyed hooking this little beauty and I'm thinking I might like to do something like this again.  I would like to try it with a different backing as the verel or divider cloth as it is sometimes called, was not to my liking.   Without the fringe the rug is 12 1/2" x 10 1/2" and with the fringe 17 x 10 1/2".

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When I colour plan, I am most comfortable if I can have a black and white  photocopy of the pattern so that I can colour it with inks and coloured  pencils.  I took a photo of the pattern, and with a simple Photoshop App on my  iPad I was able to turn it into a black and white picture to print off and play with colour until I was happy with the results.   I then used the  coloured print as a guide.  (However as I was using wool from my stash the colours are not identical.)

Charlene pulling a few loops at the shop during Saturday's hook-in. It is nice that the rug fit the floor frame so she could see the entire piece as she worked.

Charlene's coloured picture of how the colours would be used.

Basically Charlene used the length of the fringe with an overlap of an inch and hand sewed it to the rug.  Then when she applied the rug binding it covered all of the exposed verel edges and the overlay of the fringe on each side. 

We sell premade Cotton Rug Fringe in four different colours and styles.  Back in the day when our entire group was working on Oriental projects I was given a lesson in crocheting but try as I might, I was all thumbs.  So I thought maybe there were a few more folks like me who would appreciate edging already done so I promptly ordered some.   Charlene choose the second from the top and although the finished rug picture at the top appears to have a cream coloured fringe, that is my lack of photographing savvy.  Charlene cut considerable length off the fringe to meet the proportions of the rug.  Taping it along the table edge was a clever way to insure a clean cut.