ry cotton cloth an inch wide strip is not
too heavy and will pinch into the required space. If, however, a
door-hanging or lounge-cover is being woven, the rags may be made half
that width.

CHAPTER II.

THE PATTERN.

When proper warp and filling are secured, experimental weaving may
begin. If the loom is an old-fashioned wooden one, it will weave only
in yard widths, and this yard width takes four hundred and fifty
threads of warp. Warping the loom is really the only difficult or
troublesome part of plain weaving, and therefore it is best to put in
as long a warp as one is likely to use in one colour. One and a half
pounds of cotton rags will make one yard of weaving.

The simplest trial will be the weaving of white filling, either old or
new, with a warp of medium indigo blue. Of course each warp must be
long enough to weave several rugs; and the first one, to make the
experiment as simple as possible, should be of white rags alone upon a
blue warp. There must be an allowance of five inches of warp for
fringe before the weaving is begun, and ten inches at the end of the
rug to make a fringe for both first and second rugs. Sometimes the
warp is set in groups of three, with a corresponding interval between,
and this--if the tension is firm and the rags soft--gives a sort of
honeycomb effect which is very good.

The grouping of the warp is especially desirable in one-coloured rugs,
as it gives a variation of surface which is really attractive.

When woven, the rug should measure three feet by six, without the
fringe. This is to be knotted, allowing six threads to a knot. This
kind of bath-rug--which is the simplest thing possible in
weaving--will be found to be truly valuable, both for use and effect.
If the filling is sufficiently heavy, and especially if it is made of
half-worn rags, it will be soft to the feet, and can be as easily
washed as a white counterpane; in fact, it can be thrown on the grass
in a heavy shower and allowed to wash and bleach itself.

Several variations can be made upon this blue warp in the way of
borders and color-splashes by using any indigo-dyed material mixed
with the white rags. Cheap blue ginghams, "domestics" or half-worn and
somewhat faded blue denims will be of the right depth of color, but as
a rule new denim is of too dark a blue to introduce with pure white
filling.

The illustration called "The Onteora Rug" is made by using a
proportion of a half-pound of blue ra