The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1871-01-20
AGRICULTURAL & DOMESTIC.
Rag Carpets.
now TO CUT, SEW, COLOR AND AR
RANGE THE RAGS.


now TO CUT, SEW, COLOR AND AR
RANGE THE RAGS.
These indispensable articles of the
mouse are made and highly priced, in
nearly all families in the country. The
suggestions OF the experienced may les-
sen the labor of making them to the
inexperienced, besides making better
lookin carpet.
First, the rags or old garments ought
to be washed clean then rip them to
pieces, rejecting the parts too worn to be
used if not ready TO color them, tie in
bundles all that are to be colored each
color, and any that do not need color
ing may be cut and sewed, or tied up
by themselves, If not ready to com.
mence the work. All woolen ones
ought to be kept in linen sacks, to ex-
clude the moths from them.
Any light, mixed, or plaided woolens
may be improved in color by dipping
in good red dye. Clean white rags
can be colored yellow, orange, blue, or
green. Dingy white rags will look
well, colored hemlock color and set
with lime. This is clean, pretty and
durable color for some of the rags and
the warp. Bits of bark may be gather
ed around saw mills, when one cannot
get it elsewhere; boil enough bark to
make strong dye, and add to it little
clean water, after removing all bits of
bark or straining the dye. If dregs re-
main in any dye, 1t will spot the cloth
or yarn.
If smooth parlor carpet is wanted
the rags must be cotton, and other rags
that are made of fine yarn. Coarse
threaded woolen rags make a carpet
look rough, and though it may do wei
enough for a kitchen, 1t is not so nice
for II parlor.
Unless the rags are light, it will take
pound and a half, and sometimes
more, for each yard of carpet. To
know when sufficient rags are prepared
for the number of yards wanted, the
rags are fine, it will not take quite a
pound and half; but if they are coarse
threaded or woolen rags, it will take
some more than pound and half, il
the carpet is well beaten up.
II a striped carpet is wanted, tear
each color separately, and mix together
the different shades of the same color
when sewing; this will make the car
pet more uniform in color and piettier
than if some stripe contained all the
brightest colors, and others paler ones,
which they will, if the shades of the
same color are not mixed in sewing
A carpet always looks much better if all
the breadths are uniform in color, and
by mixing the shades of the same color
in sewing them it will be so.
For a hap hazard carpet, all different
colors may be mixed in sewing. This
will use up all short rags, of any color
or shade, and often makes very pret-
ty carpet, which may be woven easier
and cheaper than striped carpet.
Short pieces, or those not more
than three or four yards long, alternat-
ed with shorter ones, look the best in
this kind of carpet.
For warp, good strong prepared yarn
is the best, and saves much labor. 1t
may be reeled into skeins of five knots
before coloring, allowing one skein to o
yard and about three knots over, to be
woven in at the end of each breadth
for binding.
Measure the inside of the room, and
let the weaver know how long to make
each breadth. Carpets will shrink g
little in length from the weaver's meas
,--ure after they come out of the loom
but will often stretch a little in width
The stripes will match the best, if the
edges on the same side of the loom are
sewed together, as the different sides o.
the loom sometimes vary little.-Ru
rat NeW Yorker.