Some Old-Time Rugs Page 3

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Handicraft is only beautiful when ornamentally restrained, and meaningless decoration impairs its usefulness. The slogan of the handicrafter is to make the useful beautiful. Service is the master word, "for that which is thoroughly fitted to its use is nearly always beautiful." Beauty may be in perfectly unornamented proportions and real decoration may grow out of structure and be an integral part of it.

A school training in design without direct application to handicraft is useless for it usually consists in giving solutions for problems which do not or could not exist. Esthetic principles may be analyzed and discovered to be as exact as the laws of mathematics. They govern alike handmade rugs and mural decorations.

For instance, the handicrafter who understands the elimination of unnecessary detail and applies this principle will succeed where one with elaborate theories for ornamental motif will fail.

By working out the varied methods of making our old-time rugs we shall find just which kind of design is appropriate for each. Accordingly we shall consider the technical features which are characteristic of each rug and which identify it as a distinct type. These special features make the appearance of each rug characteristic. The inexperienced handicrafter is likely to ignore these features and to apply design from a theoretical standpoint. It may be a design totally unsuited which she or he has seen applied elsewhere and which is therefore believed to be appropriate for any kind. The practical worker uses only the type of design which harmonizes with the process by which the rug is made, and does not indiscriminately imitate the character of another rug.

Suggestions may be received from many sources but if they are to be honestly expressed they must be made practical by adaptation to the work in hand. In other words, any ornamental feature applied to a problem in handicraft must be intimately related to the special structure of each particular type. Decoration must develop as an integral part of technique. For example the most distinctive feature of the braided rug is developed from the manner in which the three strands of braid are arranged; for by braiding together two strands of a darker color with one of a very much lighter color a characteristic pattern develops when the braids are sewed together in circular rows. By emphasizing this feature in the design the rug gets a charm peculiarly its own and be-comes through a technical feature, a rug distinctive in appearance.

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The Craft Of Handmade Rugs - View The Rest Of The Book

Introduction - A Word About Dyes - The Braided Rug  - The Scalloped Doormat Or Tongue Rug
The Knitted Rug - The Crocheted Rug - The Hooked Rug In Cotton And Wool - The Needle-Woven Rug
The Colonial Rag Rug - Some Applications - Newer Methods Of Stencil Making - The Tufted Counterpane
Old Time Lights - The Batik Or Wax Resist Process