en. An
ivory center is lovely with an old pink border worked in green. A tan
center may be combined with old rose, sage green, bronze green, light
yellow, cream color, and dark brown outlines. Indigo blue, forest green,
and dull yellow are excellent colors when combined. A great variety of
beautiful rugs may be made by using only blue and white, and unless one
wishes to go extensively into dyeing, it might be well to choose a
certain simple color scheme such as blue and white, red, black, and
ivory, and abide by it. Let it be remembered that white in rugs is not
white, neither is it a delicate cream. Unless it is decidedly yellowish
or even grayish in tone, when in combination with other colors, it
becomes a staring white that is anything but artistic. I dye my cream
colors, just as much as I do dark reds or greens.

[Sidenote: _Planning a color scheme for a rug_]

"I have been asked many times what is the best way to plan a color
scheme for a rug. This is a point I cannot determine for another. Some
may find help in making water color sketches of what they wish to do. In
my own work I never use them, as it requires making a reduced drawing of
great accuracy, and much time to color it. Often I plan a combination
mentally, and match it up from the dyed flannels I always have on hand.
Other times I vary the scheme of some rug I have already made,
experimenting with different combinations, using other rugs as if they
were books of reference. I have discovered one rather curious thing,
which is, that when all my experimenting is done I find some particular
color scheme fits a certain rug as no other does. It seems to clothe or
to fulfill the pattern as if it belonged personally to it. When I once
discover this elective affinity of a pattern for its special coloring, I
never make it again save in that one guise.

[Sidenote: _Shading_]

[Sidenote: _Directions for shading_]

"Much skill can be shown by an artistic worker in the use of slight
shades of difference in the same color. For example, in the plain center
of a rug, several tones representing shades of the same color will give
the effect of a play of light on a silky surface, which is very
beautiful. By using material that has been dyed a trifle darker at one
end of the rug, and working in gradually lighter tones, the result is
surprisingly effective. To do this, each three or four yards should be
dyed with these slight differences of tone; then when within thirty