Proggy rugs

Flaming June is proving to be a tad disappointing... we have lit a fire nearly every evening and Dr Fred mooches round the house dressed for winter decked out with fleece and woolly hat...

We had one nice day to tease us.  I used it wisely and spent the day in the garden doing much needed weeding and tidying - tedious but essential.

The rest of the week has been about exploring a local tradition - 'proggy rugs'.  I inherited two rather sorry specimens when my parents died.. many years ago, and I loved them first because they were allegedly made by my mum but also because they had a certain rustic charm.. they eventually just dropped to bits.

My friend had been to a proggy rug workshop and we had an industrious afternoon sharing skills - her showing me proggy rug techniques and me giving her a quick hand piecing patchwork class... now I wonder if she is as taken with patchwork as I am with proggy rugs...

I never throw any fabric away - even the tiniest scraps... might come in for stuffing something or I might need it for small decoration - who knows - so I have a large sack full of bits - some not even worthy of the name scrap!!! and... at last some of them are coming into there own - and I have been able to start my own proggy rug without any outlay at all... It is a satisfying use of bits, perfect repurposing recycling what ever you wish to call it, even managing to incorporated seemingly boring bits of fabric to create something quite vibrant and extremely tactile and of course useful... (if you need a rug)

one corner of my 'potential' proggy rug

This is an old fashioned kind of rug but increasingly becoming desirable - definetley fits into my 'smash it in ' ethos admittedly I do feel a bit like a real nana sat making rugs.  In my initial first flush of enthusiasm I have beavered away and managed about 20 square inches and to be honest last night I decided it would be a proggy mat cushion as a rug seemed rather daunting and possibly a little bit boring to do - I think maybe watching an actual pattern develop would be more interesting but other then black lines supposedly marking squares out my rug is very random using what ever I pick up first. However in the light of day I may be persuaded to continue and make it into a little bedside rug as its rather nice to bury ones feet in - its very soft and cuddly.  Its a project that doesn't have to be finished this week, and its an excellent use of the scraps which really I would be hard pressed to use in any other way - so I will probably continue and hopefully have a wee fluffly cosy toes rug by christmas.... and to the person who requested one for her sheshed - tough - I dont have the patience to do it again but I'll show you how so you can do your own :-)