Rag rugs are often handmade by experienced hands who have carefully saved fabrics, cut them into rugs, planned the colors, set the warp and then woven the rug.
A fantastic recycling and a craft that should be respected and cherished. Take care of the carpets by scrubbing them the old fashioned way. If you have access to a jetty, it is of course simple and traditional, but a water hose on a lawn also works well. It goes without saying that common "common sense" applies, so you cannot wash your carpets where it is not suitable or not permitted. Never wash anything but ordinary carpets from home in the lake. For example, car mats or things stained by environmentally hazardous substances are washed in an approved drain. Here follows a blog about how to do it the old fashioned way.
This is what you need:
2. Scrub brushes - preferably a softer brush with, for example, tampico fiber
3. Water
Here's how to do it:
1. Soak. Put the mats in the lake / tub if you are not working on a dock and let them lie until they have sunk and soaked up water properly. Rag rugs can consist of several different materials that all take a different amount of time to soak, so let it take its time.
2. Take the solid soap directly on the brush and work along the lines - color by color. It should foam and, if necessary, add more water.
3. Pull up part of the carpet on the bridge / base (lawn works too) and scrub one part at a time.
4. Rinse with a hose or bucket, roll up the scrubbed part and pull up more carpet. Continue like this until the carpet is scrubbed. The careful one now does the same thing on the other side.
5. Then rinse the carpet.
6. In order for the carpet to dry within a reasonable time, it must now be stepped on. Roll up part of the mat and step along the mat, moving your feet a little bit at a time just to squeeze out as much water as possible.
7. When you have trampled the entire rolled carpet, take the entire roll and hit it with a few hard blows against an edge or stone to get more water out of it.
8. Now it's finally time to hang your rugs to dry. Remember to hang the rugs lengthwise as shown in the picture. By doing this, you don't risk any of the lines/colors in the carpet discoloring and running into the other color. As I said, rag rugs are a nice old reuse of textiles that would otherwise have ended up in the garbage, but this also means that the materials in the rug can be of varying types, therefore it is safest to dry the rugs shown below.
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Questions and Answers
- Why do we recommend soaking the rag rugs before soaping?
By soaking the carpets, they absorb water properly, which facilitates the cleaning process and makes it easier to dissolve the dirt.
- Why is it important to use solid, old-fashioned soap to clean rag rugs?
The solid soap is effective in foaming and breaking down the dirt in the fabrics in a gentle way. Its historical use in traditional cleaning makes it suitable for this purpose.
- How should the rag rugs be hung to avoid the colors running together?
To avoid mixing the colors, we recommend hanging the rugs lengthwise, with the lines vertical, so that no color runs into the other.
- Why is it important to step on the carpets and then beat them before drying?
By stepping on the carpets, the excess water is squeezed out, which makes them dry faster. Then beating them against an edge or stone further helps to remove water and refresh the fibers.