| =========== Denim Strips =========== If you're not fraying your strips, (as described in next tip below), try cutting or tearing them about 1/2" to 3/4" wide. After removing pockets, seams, hems, zippers etc, a pair of adult size jeans will yield about 12 - 16 oz. of strips. (say 14oz avg.) ----- Here's a way to get a "ballpark" figure of how many (adult size) blue jeans it will take for a given size rug. Multiply the square footage by .67 Example: 27" X 40" rug 1) First convert inches to feet: 27 / 12 = 2.25' (ft) 40 / 12 = 3.33' (ft) 2) Calculate square feet: 2.25 X 3.33 = 7.49 sq ft 3) Calculate (about) how many jeans: 7.49 X .67 = 5 (pair of blue jeans) 4) 5 pair of jeans or 5 X 14 oz = 70 oz 70 oz = about 4 1/3 lbs of strips Of course beat and strip-width will effect the amount of materials required, but this will give you a starting point. ----- I've tried using scissors, knives, and razor knives for cutting away the waist bands, hems and seams on jeans. However the quickest thing I've found so far is pruning shears. The kind that are similar to scissors, with about 2" long blades. They'll cut the denim and go right through those thick seams. Rod, the fiber challenged. ========================= I like to tear my denim strips as opposed to cutting them. I usually trim away the top part of the jeans i.e.. the waistband, pockets, zipper, etc and then cut off the bottom hem of each leg. Then I make cuts along the bottom edge of each pant leg about 1 inch apart. After all my little cuts are done in each leg I go outside and tear up each pant leg trimming with scissors as needed. I do this outside to eliminate the dust for me and my house! I usually place these strips per pair of pants in plastic grocery bags. Then later on a nice sunny day when I want to relax for a break outside or even better if I'm at one of my kids sports events, I'll sit with a bag of the strips and scissors and pull the loose strings away from the strips, fraying the edges out about 1/8 of an inch or more. A seam ripper is very handy to help with the fraying. I then put these "clean" strips in another bag ready for sewing. Later when I sew the strips together I lay them out according to shades or if just using one tone then just lay out in groups. I lay my strips right sides together at a right angle from each other and stitch on the diagonal. I don't clip threads as I go along but leave them in one big continuous chain. I stitch about 10 to 15 strips together per group then clip this bunch from the machine and go onto the next group. After I'm finished stitching all the strips I put them all together in a bag either by color or by amount needed for a full rug. I don't do any clipping or rolling until I'm ready to load the now prepared denim weft onto my rag shuttles. I then pull a group out of the bag, these come out easily and are not tangled as they are connected in a chain. At that point I lay my chain(s) on the table, clip the little triangle edges close to the diagonal stitching and then I clip the chain stitches between the strips and load the chain onto my shuttles. I like to load 3 or 4 shuttles at a time so I don't have to interrupt my weaving as much. The fraying may sound like a lot of extra work but once you see the results woven you'll agree it's worth the extra effort. The other benefit in tearing and fraying outside is the huge!!!!! elimination of dust and tearing denim is MUCH easier than cutting! Besides what else are you doing while watching your kids play sports or lazing in the sun? I find it rather relaxing as well as productive. I usually make a point of tearing and fraying numerous! bags of the denim strips during the warm spring, summer and fall months so I have plenty of prepared weft for winter weaving ( I can leave the titching of the strips until winter too if needed). I usually always plan for at least one or two denim rugs to be woven on whatever other warp project(s) on my loom each time. I have yet to find a warp that the denim doesn't look great with. After all, doesn't denim go with everything? Try it, you'll love the effect and so will your customers! Jet ========== We weave a lot of rugs using new/unwashed denim. The stiff nature of denim makes the sels a little difficult, so we cut it 1/2 to 3/4 inch strips and wind cotton rug filler together with it onto the shuttle (filler like edgemont's). This makes a nice sel and also adds a little color to the rugs. You can be as creative as you want with different colors, stripes, etc in the weft too. dave & judy ========== I generally cut denim about 3/4" wide. At this width, the strip usually rolls into a tube in the shed; wider strips will overlap and can be harder to weave. How many jeans? If you're working with size 42/36s, not many <G> but those are hard to come by. Rather than pairs, I usually figure by pounds. If I have 20 pounds of jeans, I can expect to have about 15 or 16 pounds of fabric by the time I remove the waistband, zipper, back pockets, front pockets and side seams. Once those flat pieces are cut into strips, I usually end up with 14 or 15 pounds of useable strips from what started out as 20 pounds of pants. And the way I weave, I allow about half a pound of denim per square foot of woven rug. So a 30" x 42" rug would be about 9 square feet, or 3.5 to 4.5 pounds of denim strips. If an AVERAGE pair of jeans weighs about a pound, you'd need 4 to 6 pair. As always, several weavers got to the same answer on different paths. Don't you just love it!~? I once watched another denim rug maker cut his fabric with a Fraser cutter ... he took the flat fabric and ran it through the cutter in an oval pattern. He started at the top of one piece, cut to the bottom and turned the corner ... across the bottom, turned the next corner ... and so on. By the time he got to the middle, he was in a pretty tight circle, but it was all one long piece of denim ... no sewing. I didn't care for the bumpy way the tight curves worked up in the finished rug, but that's yet another way of doing it! Chris Gustin ========= My last denim rug was sett at 6 epi and I wove it twill, 2/2. I cut the strips from 1/4 to 1/2 inch wide and used two strips. I used a Frasier and wanted to go fast so I tolerated some variation in the width. Double strips take a little more time, but the Frasier makes it so easy and fast to cut them. I use double strips, even though it takes more cuttin as it is much easier to beat with two thin strips. Plus it blends the various colors of the blue. I have done this with corduroy jeans also. The blended colors helps to camoflauge the dust and crumbs so you don't have to clean so often. For contrast, I had some stripes of navy and white and some stripes with some other patterned fabrics. I also bubble the weft a lot so that most of the wear will be on the weft. Joanne ====== One additional tip on denim rugs that works well with me. After dealing with so much lint after cutting the strips, one day I threw them all in the dryer on air fluff. After 5 minutes the lint trap was full. I did it two more times, and filled it up again. Then I sewed them together. What a difference in my sewing room! The ends of the strips were more "stringy" than usual, but I think it adds to the charcater of the rug. Debbie Andrews ============ http://www.oocities.org/rugtalk |
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