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(Owl hooting)
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(Birds chirping)
(Loom creaking)
I was a little girl and my mother always
told us what to do so.
She always said you were not supposed
to waste your time.
You're going to do something so this
was, this carpet weaving was our evening
work. We work all day at the field.
And then in the evening, my mother was
making rugs. So she said, come on,
girls, now you got to come and look how
I'm going to make because you're going
to learn to do this after when I'm
gone. So we used to come and sit next
to her, me and my sister.
She always told us that when you learn
when you were young, you never forget
that.
When you make homemade, it's it's going
to last you forever.
This is the old fashioned one too
. You put your warp here, I thought, min
e is old looking but these are antiques.
These are handmade, it's not the
factory made.
When people, Finnish people come from
Finland, the guys wanted their wives to
do something, not just sit and twiddle
their thumbs so they start making
looms. You can see you can see that
these are homemade.
You go in the woods and make this kind
of log.
So that was one of the things that a lot
of Finnish immigrant men would do
pretty quickly when they got here and
they had a wife who wanted to weave was
they would build a loom.
And so I think for whatever reason, rugs
just became the thing that Finnish
Americans really started to value.
It was a way for them to use the old
fabrics in their lives that, you know,
they might want to keep for different
reasons because of their durability,
because of the beauty of the colors
that were inside the weave, because of
the sentimental value of the the
stories that the fabrics told
themselves. So some people call them
memory rugs. You have these different
fabrics that have different types of
meaning. It might be a special dress
that somebody wore on a certain special
day. It could be somebody's first pair
of brand new fancy blue jeans or
something. So all of the pieces of
fabric inside a rug tell a story.
(Loom creaking)
Well, you know, it's lost art, there's
not too many people who can make
carpets and set up the looms.
It's lots of work.
Irene is such a great teacher.
The first rug Irene sat with me and she
said, OK, well, I'll show you what to
do. And I, I really enjoy I really
enjoy it a lot.
And so that was the first rug with
cooperation between Irene and I.
It goes in my bedroom and Irene thinks
they are very pretty and she says, I do
a good job. And that's all that counts
is Irene enjoys them.
Mother weaved when she could, but of
course she was raising six kids and
stay at home mom, but she'd all her
carpet rags and the cutting and the
sewing at home.
So that's what we as kids used to help
her with so I was about 10 when that
started, they got put away.
And then when my mother passed away in
nineteen eighty eight, I took ownership
of the Looms who nobody else wanted
them, and I had them in storage that
entire time, along with all her carpet
rags and even some of her wardrobe that
Irene and I used the first time when we
set up our looms that Irene gave me.
This is the one that Irene made on my
looms, made out of the chenille
bedspreads, which forms the lumpy
section, and then some different
colored rag rugs that I had.
(Old world accordion music)
(Old world accordion music) (loom banging)
And my mom credits her grandmother for
teaching her to weave, so her
grandmother came from Finland.
She said that she learned to weave from
Briita because she would bribe my mom
to stay there to help by giving her a
pink peppermint out of her apron
pocket. And all mom remembers is that
was the most boring job she ever did,
was just to sit there and pull those
strings through. But growing up at that
era, they didn't have much sweets or
candy. So the peppermints did the
trick. And Mom, mom stayed there and
helped her when Briita passed away.
She had started a rug on her loom and
it was left unfinished.
So then my mother's mother finished it.
Helen Kemppainen.
So it's woven half by my great
grandmother and half by my grandmother.
And my mom could always say she could
tell the difference. And you can tell
at this point right here that the
weaving is a little bit different, the
fabric. So my mom never had a loom
until in the early 60s, she partnered
with my aunt Linda and they decided to
buy a loom together and she was a
weaver for over 50 years straight.
I don't think she took any breaks at
that time. She was expecting her fourth
child, my sister Mavis, and she could
not fit on the loom to weave.
So when finally she was able to weave,
she always remembers that her first rug
was made out of the material of all of
her maternity dresses.
And she always thought it was in the
fall colors and the rusts and the
browns and that type of thing.
Mom was known for her quality in her
rugs. She wanted a tight weave.
She wanted straight edges.
She wanted a smooth carpet.
She didn't like lumps and bumps.
She always said, you can't be able to
put your finger through there or else
it's wove too loose.
And it wasn't going to last.
And my mom was a hard working farmer's
wife and mother of four.
I think mom enjoyed weaving because so
much that a mother does and the work
she did on the farm, you always had to
redo it. You did the laundry and it got
clothes, got dirty again.
You had to redo it, meals, dishes.
But when she could go in the basement
and make a carpet, it would last.
Carpets would last for 20 years or
more. So I guess that love of weaving
got passed on to me.
I remember as a young girl when I
joined 4H and I learned how to sew and
use the sewing machine, Mom must've
said, yahoo!
After that she had me in the basement
sewing rags for her all the time.
So I grew up with a loom in the
basement and it just was the most
natural thing in the world to me.
I would help Mom do the string just like
she helped her grandma, but I don't
remember any pink peppermints on the
deal. But she'd just tell me to just
sew any color together, just sew.
So that was my job.
I sewed lots of carpet rags for her.
So as the years went by, I got married
and my husband and daughter and I moved
close to my mom in Nisula and I would
go there in the evenings and weave.
And that's where she taught me the
weaving part. My mother and I were
weaving partners for 38 years, and
I always miss her, but I especially
miss when I'm weaving.
And when I come downstairs and I'm
weaving here and I come to the edge of
the carpet and it happens to hit where
the rags were sewn together, my mom
always said, never let the sewing part
of the rag be on the edge, because if
that lets go, you ruin the carpet.
So sometimes I'm weaving and I think,
boy, I could probably let that go, but
then I go, no, mom said never do that.
So I have to cut the rag and get that
seam inside the carpet so that the warp
pulls that tight.
So you will never have that problem of
the stitching letting go.
In 1979, I was expecting Rachel, after
she was born, my dad said, you're
wasting too much time bundling up that
baby and coming over here to weave.
So he took that loom apart and he
brought it into my basement.
I set up a play area for them so that
we could bribe them to stay down into
the basement. So I could weave and I
think that's why Rachel has carried on
the weaving tradition, because that was
her era. I guess I remember playing a
lot down in the basement while mom was
weaving. And I was probably about 10
when when Grandma had approached me and
actually said, do you want to learn?
And so that was kind of a neat
experience. And of course, time to
spend with grandma was a special thing.
So that was that was an obvious yes.
Why wouldn't I want to learn?
I remember her being down there and
prepping the rags for me and and
guiding me how to make the rug and have
things be straight.
Again, she was very organized, like Mom
said, where she wanted specific
parameters for a rug and teaching me
all those guidelines and how to do it.
So I wasn't missing a string or
anything like that. And that that was
very fun to get a chance to have that
special connection with grandma.
And in fact, she had me cut up my great
grandmother's bedspread, which I didn't
know at the time. It was probably after
I had weaved it up into a rug.
And I remember being devastated
thinking all this was a beautiful
bedspread and I cut it up, but it had
stains and holes and she knew it wasn't
going to be used for anything.
And of course, now being an adult, I
look back and that was her way of
preserving that heirloom and keeping it
in a rug. But I remember feeling so bad
after I found out that I had weaved
this beautiful bedspread into a rug.
My mom was always very pleased that she
could say that my daughters were the
fifth generation of weavers in her
family. So now the pressure is on the
sixth generation.
My granddaughter Autumn would come with
Rachel when she would have come to
weave, and I have pictures of them here
at the Loom. And now she's enjoying
crafts of all kinds and she wants to
learn to sew. So I see potential in
her. Three years ago, when the Lord
called my mom home, she had a rug that
was started on her loom.
I asked my dad, can I finish that rug?
And I do know that this was the end
that she started and I finished this
half. So I have that rug as family
treasure also.
Started by my mom and finished by
myself. The looms that Rachel has here
are handmade looms made by my Aunt
Linda's husband, and they were passed
on to her son.
And when he passed away, his wife said
that those looms need to stay in the
family. And at that time, we were
weaving quite avidly, Rachel and I,
together here. And so the looms were
put here in our basement.
My mom was always very generous.
And when she made a rug that she liked,
a lot of times she gave rugs away,
especially to family members, for
gifts. And one thing she always did was
to give the rug rug as a bridal shower
gift or a wedding gift.
I have tried to maintain that family
tradition. And as my nieces and nephews
have gotten married, I have always
tried to gift them with a rug because
I. I just hope that when it's on their
floor, they would think of our family
and the tradition and the part that
weaving has played in our, in our
family heritage.
I just decided to take a little bit of
burgundy and put it at the ends.
And this is kind of what my mom and my
aunt would say was a typical Finnish
rug with the band on the ends.
I don't know when my daughter went up
for her honeymoon in Finland she looked
at all the shops at the rag rugs and
she goes, Mom, there's a lot of them
that look a lot like yours.
(Rain drops)
Now that I'm older, I don't realize how
much of the stuff that I grew up around
was Finnish tradition, you know, like
morning coffee, afternoon coffee,
evening coffee, my mom used to make
pannukakku, and for a while she even
tried to make her own, like, trinary
style toast. The korppu, you know, we
always had Saturday sauna night.
And you knew like you had to hurry up
and clean up after dinner on Saturday
night and get something baked for
sauna company. And if you didn't go
sauna directly after supper, you went
when it was pretty cold after the
company all left. But yeah, those are
good memories. That was always fun.
While being Finn my grandparents, they
just spoke Finn and they made one side
of the family didn't make rugs the
other side of the family, they did, and
it was just something that they did.
So I just figured Finn Finnish people
must do this.
The Finnish Americans appreciate rag
rugs more so than the general community.
Very much so. And so they I think they
appreciate the utility, you know,
aspects of it. And but I think also
they just, it's just a Finnish thing.
You have a rug on your floor.
You don't go to Wal-Mart and buy a rug.
Grandma and grandpa on the Finnish side
had a summer kitchen and it was a huge
room with a loom.
A carpet loom and it went from wall to
wall, it was huge, and that's what they
did. They made carpets for everybody
and I still have a few left.
I don't use them anymore because I want
to save them. But our entire house
growing up was grandma's carpets.
I remember watching Mrs Pelto and Mrs
Niemisto make rag rugs.
You know, they had those old fashioned
looms that made a lot of noise and you
could hear them all over town,
Boom, boom. And they really couldn't
speak English, but somehow we
communicated with them.
Yeah. So I mean I'm really, really
thankful that we got to witness that
generation, their hard work and they
could do a lot with little like our
grandmother
Was just special.
But she took great pride in her rugs and
mixing colors the right way and making
sure they were sturdy, I mean, she
pounded like mad.
I think she made it for my kitchen.
I can't remember. But I did tell her I
know that I wanted it to be sort of
light colored and blue and then she
could do whatever she wanted in the
band and I'll save it.
I won't walk on it anymore.
They were dear hearts and gentle people
that lived in Pelkie at that time, and
they made the best carpets in the
doggone world, betchya they'd work
four, five up to 10 days on a carpet,
then sell it for maybe five bucks.
You don't get it for five bucks
anymore now.
Hand-woven rugs for sale, it says.
That sign that dictates busy days of
weaving together warp and weft into
rugs that duly stand times test.
For those that do not know the art,
think weaving is the simple part.
But hours of time must first be spent
to get a rug to development.
There's filler to cut and warp to
string. And planning is no easy thing
to have the colors come out right and
making sure it's woven tight, keep the
edges nice and even.
The pattern comes as you are weaving.
Each row is marked down to keep track,
get to the middle, then start back.
Each pattern strip has got to match.
The combination must attract.
Don't pull the filler up too tight.
Make sure the colors come out right.
Beat it hard to make it firm.
So many things you have to learn.
Now the weaving part is done.
There's several rugs on every run.
But with the rug you're still not
through. There's tying of the ends
you've yet to do.
You've finished finally with your part.
Hours have gone into this art from
cutting, planning, weaving to and all
the time that you do.
What's the price put on the rug?
The time has passed off with a shrug.
The cost of warp and filler too.
You'll never get what price is due.
Yet looking on the finished work,
you're glad you spent the time it took
to create each item on your part.
Each piece of work is a dying art.
(Birds chirping)
My grandma wanted to get a loom, but it
wouldn't really fit in the house, very
tiny house, and so she bought a Union
36 loom and they brought it in here in
1952 and it became the carpet shack.
And so this is where my grandma made
her rag rugs. We didn't talk all that
much. She was always busy.
She was busy cooking wonderful meals,
the best bread, or she was sitting in
the living room with a cup of coffee
and talking in Finn with the adults.
And the loom itself was here.
I actually, by myself came down
because I'm a Finn I don't ask for
help. I came down and I dismantled it,
brought it home, set it up in my own
house. And also there are still rag
balls, including pumpkin size rag balls
and some of these vats and also
barrels, barrels full of cut strips
ready to be sewn together and made into
rag balls. So clearly she had plans to
do a lot more. My idea is, is to make
some rugs using her rag balls, because
then I could say my grandpa and I and
her all collaborated on making rugs.
At the same time, I hate to destroy
them, but I think I will save enough to
have them on display in the house and
then use a number of them to make one
or two rugs.
(Loom banging)
Back in the 1980s, my dad was always
trying different projects, he'd try
woodworking, he'd try this, he'd try
that, and finally he came upon, wanted
to do the carpet looms.
The first loom he actually built
himself. And we all spent our time
cutting carpet rags and cutting carpet
rags till you had blisters on your
fingers and we went through many, many
pairs of scissors.
Once you get enough built up so you
could start banging out some carpets,
we put the stereo in the garage and
opened the doors and the windows in the
summers we spent out working there.
It's been so many years since I've done
this it's kind of like learning all
over again. Why is it getting caught?
Oh, this is really where I miss my dad.
(Loom rattling)
Oh, it seems to be working much better.
These are the heddles, they're these
little wire rods, they have a little
twist in the center of them.
They'll be like a little hole, which is
where the string feeds through, and
that's what lifts the them up and down.
So I had to tie, like, how many?
There's like 226 knots.
You also have to thread them again
through the reed and the space between
the the little wire like little wire
slats on there, there are called dents.
(Loom rattling)
(Fiddle music)
I'm working with a flannel right now
that, there were some worn sheets that
came across.
(Fiddle and guitar music)
Twenty six, twenty eight. OK, so now
I'm ready for my next other color.
(Fiddle and guitar music)
(Loom banging)
Oh, man, my grandmother, I've seen, you
know, I probably was sitting on her
knee probably 80 years ago, I was
sitting on her knee and she was making
carpets. You know, being a little boy,
you have to be nosey.
What's she pounding up there?
That my grandma, you know, she was all
by herself. Her husband had died and
she didn't speak any English.
So she's making carpets she can't even
have a radio because there's nothing on
it that she would understand.
The, the days must have been long.
And the biggest job isn't here.
It's cutting them things up, getting
everything ready to make a carpet.
And Rose and I would tie the rugs.
Well, she had coffee on and well, every
Finlander had coffee going all day
long. You know, everything that she got
had been patched at least once or maybe
two times or three times even.
She would save all them and then sew
them all together.
You know, you had to cut it and sew it.
She had a sewing machine right by her
loom. See this one
went in here.
Now when I- see my finger locked in
there, I can't pull it out.
See, now it's now when we pound it in
there only gets tighter and tighter.
Now it'll be two years pretty soon that
I bought this here and I had never made
a carpet before. I didn't have any idea
what you're supposed to do.
Now, if I could have watched Grandma
now thinking about it, she could have
probably taught me lots.
And I'm sure there were a lot of
mistakes. And there probably is still,
you know, that somebody would come here
that made carpets for years.
Why are you doing it that way?
You know, do it this way.
Now we've got string on here so it
doesn't come loose.
The string is so close to each other,
it locked this in here.
You know, like now if you took this off
here, this would all come loose from
here. So we put the string to that.
You get about a half inch.
So that's about.
See they're going so close together,
these are that it can't possibly come
loose no more.
(Loom banging)
I enjoyed this, but it does get old,
this does.
I mean, put so much time in it.
It's already getting to be, you know, a
job when it gets to be that, you have
to do it. It's not fun anymore.
It's just a pastime, really.
(Finnish Kantele Music)
My aunt always said it was to get the
last use out of clothes that had been
handed down, the family, large
families, the clothes were handed down,
and then when there was nothing else
you could do with that, it went into a
rug and still have some use.
I remember learning about recycling in
school and thinking it was kind of
silly because, well, we just did that,
you know, that was just part of what
weaving was about.
And the whole thing about doing rugs was
the the reusability of everything.
Nothing was left to waste.
They really strove to do a good job
with whatever they had.
And that's, you know, you had to here.
You had to be able to do everything
yourself, including making those looms.
As you saw, not everybody could afford
a factory made one at all.
Oh, Anna. She was just she she worked so
hard all her life.
And she was the ultimate recycler, I
think. You know, it was so funny
because sometimes, you know, I thought
I was a recycler. And so I would talk
to Anna and, you know, she would she
would show me that her garbage for the
week was in a little bag about this big
you know.
She I mean, she would take the newspaper
from her friend's house.
She borrowed, you know, take the
newspaper and burned it in her sauna.
And I mean, she just completely
recycled everything.
When they cut the rugs, of course, they
had to save everything, and so the wood
bobbins or the wood spools for the
thread are amazing to me.
And she saved every single one, not
just the wooden ones or lots of plastic
ones. And I wondered why she would save
every single spool.
What would she reuse them for?
But again, it was the waste not, want
not, the frugality of the Finnish
Americans. And also growing up poor and
living poor here on the farm, every
single button had to be saved.
And so I have a large collection of
very cool vintage buttons that I
actually keep in glass canisters at
home on display here we have commodity
cheese, but it's labeled zippers.
And inside you have zippers, all sorts
of zippers, different sizes, different
colors.
Things like this. Can you guess what
that is? I'm assuming it's a bunch of
elastics from men's underwear that you
save that because you never know when
you might need it I guess.
I guess she was recycling before people
knew the word recycling, I think.
My mother got this idea.
She wanted to make a rug out of
plastic. And so anybody that got within
her reach, she would say, if you had
any plastic bag, don't throw them away,
I'm going to make a rug.
And that's what she did.
Yeah. And it took lots of Bunny Bread
bags.
Neighbors and everybody else had to save
for them. And then you'd maybe get one.
Just think very, very few people bought
bread them days.
It was all homemade bread.
I always say these these rugs have more
miles on them than a '57 Chevy.
I've had them here.
I lived in Waupun, I lived in Stoughton
and they always came with me, you know,
they've been back for twenty years.
I've been back here now that long.
They're hard to find.
Old ones, new ones.
Very hard to find these days.
A lot of the elderly ladies who made
them aren't making them anymore.
And every once in a while I talk to
someone from the family of someone who
did make rag rugs and they said, oh,
it's still in the basement.
Is it any good anymore?
I don't know.
And you have to be careful how you wash them.
How you clean them. But if you put them in
the washing machine, it doesn't take
very long before they're gone.
they just turn into rags.
The best way to clean them is to take
them out after there's been a new snow
and clean them with snow.
Just keep brushing snow on them.
With the broom
(Kantele music and wind noise)
She says, take them outside on a snowy
you have fresh snow and just shake them
into that snow and it brightens up the
rug and all of your dirt gets left on
the snow.
My grandmother used to like now if there
is fresh snow like that, she'd just put
them out there and take the broom and
just sweep all over them.
And, you know, they lived on a farm.
So and that's how she cleaned them in
the wintertime. Always.
(Kantele music and wind noise)
We used our carpets all the time that
our mummus wove for us and in due time
because of people walking on them or
the age of them, they took the wear and
became a little destroyed.
These are probably 100 years old.
This one is nice and wore
. But again, we're going to preserve the
good parts and make pillow covers out
of them. There's still there's some
good weaving still left in it and we
thought we need to save some of our
good rugs that our mummus wove.
Now, I have mine hanging on my bedroom
wall in my Florida home, a beautiful
rug from my Mummu.
And I found it in a garage all curled
up in a ball. And I said, I'm
preserving this. My little brother in
Detroit, he has his encased in a big
glass display.
Now, they made them for their stairs as
well, going up and down their stairs.
Yeah, this is a bound one and using
lighter rag strips.
And there is more of a pattern in this
one as well. The 13 years I was alive
when with my mummu she died in 1967, I
believe I learned a lot and appreciate
my culture. She taught me to stay real
close to nature, to be honest, to work
hard and to never give up.
So we have fond, fond memories of Mummu
and Papa. This is our our grandma door.
And on this side is their history, the
history of how they got together.
And this is the favorite picture that
we love of them. And then on the back
of it was our, was our representation
of of the rug she made.
We didn't get the stitching in, but my
mother and my Auntie Liz and I made
this this was our tribute to to mummu.
The rugs on this end of the rope, these
were all done by Lydia Tuominen, who
was a good friend of both of ours.
There was a Maytag place down on Front
Street and she used to bring her
carpets down there to sell and he'd put
them in the window for her.
And she sold them how much a foot?
A dollar fifty a foot, she sold them
for in the late 1950s and 60s.
My grandmother used to like she, made
them for people most of the time, about
a dollar and a half, I think for a
carpet.
Back in the late 80s and early 90s when
I was in college.
This is how I actually spent my summers
earning money for college, was making
rugs 40 cents an inch rings a bell, but
I really can't remember.
People would just come to the house to
buy rugs. You know, they hear through
from everybody that we made them.
Growing up, I remember always going to
the craft sale in November, that was a
big deal to go with grandma.
I think half the fun was going there and
listening to her brag about being the
fifth generation in the family weaving.
And she was always so proud to show all
of her friends who would come and would
buy year after year.
Oh this is something that my
granddaughter wove.
And then it was a fun bonding time just
to be with mom and grandma and to watch
them interact with their customers.
Seemed like she knew everybody.
And I think most people were strangers.
But she could always find a connection
with people when when she was talking
about rugs or anything for that matter.
And that was her her way of getting
Christmas money. She would weave all
year and sell at the Christmas crafts
sale to have Christmas money.
She sold a lot of her rugs to
acquaintances through word of mouth,
but she also consigned at the hardware
store in South Range.
She never drove in her life.
And so my grandpa would deliver them
and then he would pick up the cash from
the most recent batch.
And since he worked in the woods at the
logging camps, they didn't have a lot
of income. And so these rugs were a
welcome source of more money for them.
At the crafts sales, you can always see
those people that are surprised at the
price. I do by the piece, what it looks
like, the size, the fabric, how long it
took me to weave it.
But I would say an average is thirty
five, thirty six dollars a yard.
People a lot of times don't understand
all the time that goes into making a
handmade product. They look at the
price and they're thinking like, oh, I
can buy a rug much cheaper that's made
in the store but. There's a lot of time
that goes into making something homemade.
People would ask me, how long does it
take to weave a rug?
And I say, well, it takes, you know,
three days, you have to warp the loom,
you have to cut the rags sew the rags
and then you weave. So how much is
three days of full, three days of work
worth? You know, and then the materials
and stuff is the materials aren't the
big expense, it's the labor.
You know, the only thing is if you buy
one at the store and it has a foam
backing on it, you might as well throw
it away after a year because that
backing is on your floor and all over
everything else. I'm sure these are as
sturdy as one that comes out of a
factory and maybe better.
You can tell if a carpet is a good
quality type carpet by
Letting it roll, you roll it up like
this.
And once you roll it, it should be able
to stand on its own, and that's a nice
tight carpet. My mother used to do what
she called hit-and-miss, she did not do
a pattern with it and it's whatever
there was and that's how I came to that
time. You can see the warp, the colors
it was so that kind of stands out a
little bit. And you can see how
fringed, really worn.
You can tell this has been used a lot.
But sometimes grandma's whole rug would
be all patterns, things that had
herringbone or plaids or flowers or
things like that. That's what Mom said.
It was always fun to start a new rug to
see how those colors were going to mix
and blend.
Or what pattern, yeah and that the
pattern kind of depends on what you
have. Do you have long strips?
Do you have just short strips that you
want to do a hit and miss type or the
long ones you can get banded?
She, as far as I can see exclusively,
did hit-and-miss.
Hit-and-miss is essentially where there
is no pattern to the colors.
You just randomly adding the different
cloth strips. You're not creating clear
bands as you're going through, which
you're pretty limited when you have a
Union 36 loom as to what you can do
anyway, but it's just not creating any
specific striping pattern.
This is a chasing chasing pattern where,
well it's a pattern where when you're
weaving you put certain rags in a
certain order and then you go back to
the light, to the dark, to the light,
to the dark. I majored in clothing and
textiles at Michigan State University
and that's where I first saw the looms.
I was walking upstairs in the textile
building and I saw these looms in a
room and it just kind of sucked me in,
you know. And I saw about 14 looms in
there. Nobody was in the room and there
was all these projects on them.
And so I knew I wanted to learn how to
weave. And then I met Anna Lassila.
She was a master rug maker and weaver.
So I did an apprenticeship with her.
We did braiding and then I did another
apprenticeship with her doing rag rugs
. After I started weaving with rags, I
never went back. I just I have only
been weaving with rags since then.
Something special about rags, it's
different than yarn.
It's different than, you know, just
making a pattern because there's a
pattern in the rugs, in the rags and in
the way the warp is on the loom.
So it all interacts and it's, every rug
is different. Even if you make the same
rug again, it's always different stuff.
One time in our weaving group, someone
asked Anna, they asked her the
question, are you still weaving with
those rags? And so that's when Anna and
I stopped going to the meeting.
And you know she was very insulted.
And so we just did our own thing after
that. We didn't we just didn't go to
that weaving group anymore.
You know, she was just she was very
special. She was like a grandma to me.
I think my connection with weaving
through the years has been mostly
through teaching and demonstrating to
others. My first apprentice was Vivian,
Anna's niece. We started an
apprenticeship that was supposed to be
eight months long and was probably
about 10 years.
She was always planning on making rugs
with her aunt, Anna. And unfortunately,
Anna had had a stroke like within a
couple months of her moving up here.
And so she couldn't talk so they called
me. And I was able to help Vivian make,
you know, learn her craft, because I
knew, you know, I had worked with Anna
for so many years. I knew exactly what
she wanted to tell her.
So Anna would come, we would all be
together and Anna would sit there and I
would give Vivian the directions and
show her actually how to do it.
And then if it wasn't right, Anna would
go hmmm, you know, she would tell us.
She knew everything that was going on.
And so this was a wonderful way for us
to keep our tradition alive with,
between the generations.
And we really enjoyed it.
And it was fun. Vivian has gone on to
make spectacular rugs room size rugs.
She is an artist and in her own right
she was before.
But I mean, she really did some
beautiful, beautiful work.
This is a five strand braided rug that I
learned how to make from a woman named
Vivian Huotari. So I thought, these are
beautiful because you can see this has
a pattern within a pattern and you do
it all with color. We've been using it
for quite a few years ago, quite a few
years now. They stand up very well.
When I first started doing braid rugs,
that was in the 1970s.
And you would use recycled wool.
I would go to places like St Vincent,
Salvation Army, and I would get pleated
skirts for 10 cents.
And if you took them apart, right,
you'd end up with a great big piece of
material wool.
And I made I made three rugs that way.
I suppose finding the wool is the
hardest thing, finding the wool.
I mean, you could go out and buy wool,
but that's not the point you want.
Yeah, there are actually some skirts in
there like this would be skirt material
right here. Who knows how old that
skirt is. That's amazing how old that
skirt probably is and it's still going.
This rug, I hope, will outlive me.
To me, it's a it's an art form.
I just I love it.
I love the traditions of the teachers
that have taught me.
This is especially what the women in the
the area here did, very high end
artisan work, no matter what it was
that people did. They did it very, very
well. So it wasn't just a weekend craft
or nightly craft.
It was something they learned from
their family.
Rag rugs for many people are just
something that's on the floor.
And they're not considered an art.
They're just, you know, a utilitarian
object. But and so people think, oh,
just rags. But when there was an
exhibit at Finlandia University, Yvonne
Lockwood had the exhibit Rags, Rugs
and Weavers, and all of a sudden rag
rugs were art.
(Old world accordion music)
Shirley with her rug at the Iron County
Museum put on by Michigan State
University with folklore specialist
Yvonne Lockwood.
(Old world accordion music)
And that really, I think, did change a
lot of people's opinions in this area
about, you know, rag rugs.
People appreciated them in a different
way. I love Yvonne also.
Every once in a while she'd mentioned
the book, you know, she'd say she was
working on a book. And I thought, well,
it's gonna be a little paperback, you
know, a little book. And she'd talk
about it. Over the years it was
probably 20 years later.
And she said the book is done and I'm
sending you a copy.
So I thought, OK, this little book.
And when I got it, I was speechless.
I just could not believe the work that
she had done with all of these women.
You know, for that whole over the past
20 years of research.
I think that she did she just did a
beautiful job on that book.
And it was and it just became the rug
book, I think, in the whole area.
And so when you
see rag rug weavers talk about the
importance of Yvonne's book or of an
exhibit that she did in about like 15,
20 years ago, it may seem very lowly to
celebrate something that you put down
on the ground and walk on and that's
made out of rags. It is still something
that's a high art and it's still
something that the people who are part
of that community recognize and
appreciate. I cannot overstate enough
the work that Yvonne Lockwood has done
to celebrate traditional artists
broadly and rag rug weavers in
particular.
Yvonne Lockwood came to visit my mom
several times to interview her, and
Yvonne liked to look around the farm
because mom would show her like an old
rug would be on the tractor seat and
just find places where where the rag
rugs were which as they got older, they
got moved around into the garage or
something. So that dad could lay on
them when he was working on the tractor
or whatever. When she sent, mom a
complimentary copy, we were very
excited. I thought she did a wonderful
job of that. So my book is signed by
both her and my mom.
So that's a cherished memory of her.
So I really felt a bond with my mom
through the weaving, and many, many
years ago my mom gave me a little card
that had this poem called "The Weaver"
on it. And I had it thumbtacked on the
side of my loom here for years.
And when I went to my dad's yesterday,
I looked at her loom and she has hers
thumb tacked right here.
It's called "The Weaver." My life is
but a weaving between the Lord and me.
I cannot choose the colors.
He worketh steadily.
Ofttimes he weaveth sorrow and I in
foolish pride forget he sees the upper
and I the underside.
Not till the loom is silent and the
shuttle ceases to fly.
Shall God unroll the canvas and explain
the reason why the dark threads are as
needed in the weaver's skillful hands
as the threads of gold and silver in
the pattern he has planned.
My mom was, had a great love for
weaving, but she also loved the Lord
and she knew that he was the weaver of
her life. And that poem is just very
special to me.
So my grandma died in 2004 and the farm
was largely abandoned.
Around 2016, I got the idea that I
wanted to come get the loom.
I didn't know how the loom worked.
And by myself, I took it apart.
Hauled the pieces in my vehicle, tucked
them in between blankets, brought them
home. And about a year later, I had a
friend come help me put it back
together as best we could from my
memory. I ended up with an extra bolt,
a couple of nuts, a washer.
To this day, I don't know where they
go. I know they came off the loom and
then it was two winters ago, I took the
weaving class at Finlandia.
And so then I was able to make my first
rag rug and, that, making that
first rug rug, I, I got so involved in
it and so absorbed in it.
And it was like meditating to me and
and I felt as I was doing it, like my
ancestors were in the room with me.
I felt like they were along the
perimeter sitting there, standing there
watching and happy to see that I was
doing this. And I was so absorbed in
the project that maybe an hour had
passed. And I finally really looked up
and I was shocked because I had started
in that corner of the room and now I
had crossed all the way to the other
side of the room from the beating down
of the weft. And so me and the loom
were gradually scooching across.
And I didn't even notice because I was
so into the process.
(Live bluegrass music)
(Owl hooting)