Byzantine floor mosaic found on the farm
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I’ll try to post my 1st pic here. Brenda, I’m a huge fan of tile & especially animal tile rugs .. Do it in those Byzantine colors. Tres cool. I have a 100 yr old mini tile rug I used to put under my piano pedals to keep my feet warm (I’ll look for a pic) but this is a close-up of another in a family room … . I so wish I had your talents. I have to haggle with Afghans to get mine!
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@blondie To make a rug design for hooking, I will get the best pics of it that I can find, ideally an overhead view, which may be more available as they continue digging and cleaning. Then I tile it to multiple pages to get the scale or size desired. From there, I will fill in any gaps or completely missing elements.
I'll use a sharpie to darken the lines to make it easier to transfer the pattern to linen by using my light box table. That's a very long process of moving both pattern and linen over the light table, transferring the pattern by drawing it directly on the linen by hand using the darkened lines as my guide, then moving another section of the pattern and linen over the light box and doing that repeatedly until all the pattern is on the linen.As for the size, at least 5'x7', but perhaps larger. It will depend on where it will go. Probably either hubby's office, the library, or the living room. Both the library and office need work done, so I have lots of time to make this, if I decide to do it.
It reminds me of the William Morris animals, too, or De Morgan's animals. Those two gents were friends and business associates. Morris was fabrics and wallpaper, De Morgan was tile and pottery. I made a rug pattern combining Morris scrolling with De Morgan's animals, and named it De Morgan's Marsh. This fall, I'll finish transferring the pattern and start the hooking. That one will take a while to complete. Yes, a long while, even though it's only a 5'x7'. I think the one based on the Byzantine tiles would hook faster. It's less detailed and more monochromatic.
Yes, I am always planning the next rug.
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I want to see more Brenda. This is fascinating as I’m a little collector of Morris & Co. fabrics. And I’m going to read of DeMorgan too.
I suppose you could screenshot the pic, then play in your settings so to edit for a squarer-flatter pic. I sometimes do this when taking quilt photos so the quilt looks less like a trapezoid for the shot. It’s so hard to get dead over or dead on to photograph anything large.
I can only see the first pic in the article now, but those may well be square tiles. The outer border is fantastic.
I’ve questions .. How will you research & source the colors for this project? Do you ever add silk or rayon as highlights for sheen? Do you back the rug afterwards? -
@blondie
To get the best colors to approximate the ones of the mosaic, I will have to get the best possible pics I can find. I can bring my laptop to my workshop and use the full spectrum lighting in that space to get colors as accurate as using sunlight. The space has windows for natural light, too. That's the best way to get colors that are right.Heh, I have my stash of wool in the same workroom as my light table. It's a rather large stash that's organized by color, with a separate section of just neutrals: browns, shades of ivory, grays, blacks. This is on the second floor of the garage, spanning the full width of a double garage. It's about 32'x16', and the wool covers about 20 feet on one wall, at least 10 feet on another side, all 7 feet high in wire bins on shelving. That's lots of room for wool. Every winter it freezes out there, which is excellent for protecting the wools from infestation by moths. When gathering the colors for a project, I tell hubby I'm going 'shopping' out in my workshop.
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@blondie
I stick to 100% wool for durability as a floor rug. Silks and other fabrics are fine for a wall hanging, but not so much for a floor rug, which I think I would do for this.The linen of the rug backing, where I draw the design, serves as the final backing. No other backing is needed when using good linen. The linen comes from Scotland. When all the hooking is complete, I bind the edges with wool as well.
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@blondie
A couple times people who are unfamiliar with traditional rug hooking have said it must be a good way to make inexpensive rugs. They're thinking of rag rugs and such. I find it amusing.I'm just fortunate my hubby loves the rugs I hook. He's willing to let me put the quality materials into these projects to make them durable and attractive. If they were not, I would not consider it worth all the time. Each large rug can take months or years to complete.
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@George-K said in Byzantine floor mosaic found on the farm:
THat's really neat.
A rug like that would be cool - how big would you make it?
George, most of my rugs range in the 3'x5' to 4'x6' sizes. This one would be fun to scale up to 5'x7' or maybe a bit more. As blondie noted, it doesn't have the intricate background of a typical Morris type pattern. That means the width of the cut wool could be wider. I think it would work fine to use #6 and #8 cuts, which are 6/32 and 8/32 of an inch wide. Perhaps the background areas could even go up to #8.5 or #9, which are 10/32 and 12/32 of an inch. The wider cuts might help give a look similar to the mosaic, which would be appropriate. Those wider cuts also make the hooking go much faster.
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@brenda I’ve seen the tools you gals (& guys) use for hooking and cutting. And I’m sure you’ve acquired the best over time. Do you teach? Do people in your parts have an interest in learning? Are they young or old? Do you have wool swaps & cutting bee’s like quilters do?
I’m trying to imagine your background & palate for Brenda’s Byzantine … Your doing a rug of a mosaic tile floor. So will you go for a tiny mosaic background, like with mottling colors or will you go for staggered linear abrash like on Iranian/Afghan rugs? (Abrash is a desirable quality in a rug; it’s not a flaw nor does it happen with fading). And you talked of sizes of strips, but what patterns of wool do you choose to achieve your mottling if you attempt a tiny mosaic? Do you dye your own wool, use a check, stripe or plaid? Is there such a thing as ombre or striated dyed wool?
Using your cutters … Slicing it all up would be right up my alley .. I’m weird but in my quilty world, it’s one of my favourite parts of the process.
I’m also curious of the increasing weight of the rug as you’re doing it. To me 5x7 is lap quilt sized so I know what that’s like throwing it over my shoulder, rolling it, using side tables, etc to counteract gravity while quilting. Does your linen stretch lots during the process? Do you start going at the background from the centre outwards?
One last question … because you’re in Minnesota … settle something for some of us Canucks … in your opinion, true or false .. “North Light is the best light in which to judge the True Color of fabric & fibre.” -
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@blondie said in Byzantine floor mosaic found on the farm:
@brenda I’ve seen the tools you gals (& guys) use for hooking and cutting. And I’m sure you’ve acquired the best over time. Do you teach?
No, I don't.
Do people in your parts have an interest in learning?
There is some interest, and there are teachers within an hour of where I live.
Are they young or old?
It's a mix. Many are retirement age, but there are many younger ones, too.
Do you have wool swaps & cutting bee’s like quilters do?
There are rug hooking events, and people will sell patterns and wools, but I have not attended any for many years. I live far enough away to not desire to travel, especially since I could hook during that time.
I’m trying to imagine your background & palate for Brenda’s Byzantine … Your doing a rug of a mosaic tile floor. So will you go for a tiny mosaic background, like with mottling colors or will you go for staggered linear abrash like on Iranian/Afghan rugs? (Abrash is a desirable quality in a rug; it’s not a flaw nor does it happen with fading).
I think it would work to use wool in widths that would mimc the tile, and each loop will have its own shadow line that would enhance that tile effect. I like to use wools that are mottled, and I sometimes will 'marry' colors together in the dye pot to have them trade colors with one another to create that mottled effect.
And you talked of sizes of strips, but what patterns of wool do you choose to achieve your mottling if you attempt a tiny mosaic? Do you dye your own wool, use a check, stripe or plaid? Is there such a thing as ombre or striated dyed wool?
I use all kinds of wool patterns and mottling. That's part of why I have collected so much wool. It all serves one purpose or another in various designs. I have dyed wools, but mostly I either use the wool 'as-is' or marry it with other colors to create different effects. The Plaids can become very effect tive for hooking stones and other textures, and they might serve well for the mosaic tiles, too. That will require some experimentation.
Using your cutters … Slicing it all up would be right up my alley .. I’m weird but in my quilty world, it’s one of my favourite parts of the process.
I use a rotary stye cutter that clamps to the edge of a table and has a variety of interchangeable wheels that are for the different widths of cuts. It's a compresssion type of cutter that you turn the crank handle, guiding the wool through to keep the cuts straight on the grain.
I’m also curious of the increasing weight of the rug as you’re doing it. To me 5x7 is lap quilt sized so I know what that’s like throwing it over my shoulder, rolling it, using side tables, etc to counteract gravity while quilting. Does your linen stretch lots during the process?Yes, it will stretch a bit, but not very much.
Do you start going at the background from the centre outwards?
I start the pattern from the middle and work outward, working the motifs first, and then the background around them as I go further out toward the edges. I think the background on this type rug would go faster than others, and be very rewarding for the quick progress.
One last question … because you’re in Minnesota … settle something for some of us Canucks … in your opinion, true or false .. “North Light is the best light in which to judge the True Color of fabric & fibre.”
We have good light here most of the time. Our skies are remarkably clear, especially in the winter. January offers such bright days, and I hear that from people who have lived here and miss such bright skies, including my kiddo. The wet and dreary weather in Oregon has worn thin for kiddo. Now those brisk, crisp, and clear blue sky January days of Minnesooooooooooota have regained a great deal of appeal. Appreciation often comes from experiencing the lack of something.
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@blondie said in Byzantine floor mosaic found on the farm:
@brenda Oh, I forgot .. I’m sure your hooking is very uniform precise with your experience, but how the heck do you work or compensate to square up something so large?
The linen has such nice straight warp, it helps to keep things straight. I also often do a border around the rug that is straight, which helps pull it all together into a proper line again.
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@blondie said in Byzantine floor mosaic found on the farm:
My gosh there are multiple pics & video of this Gaza guy’s Byzantine floor. Brenda, you’ll have a terrific time doing this!
That's part of the appeal of this concept. There will likely be rather good and useful images to help create the pattern.
On another note, I was thinking how this could also become a nice hall runner by stacking the motifs in shorter rows for a loooooonger piece. One could even do repeats of the motifs to make it even longer.
I have a long upstairs hallway ...
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@blondie said in Byzantine floor mosaic found on the farm:
@brenda ....... I understand now what you are saying of the varying strip widths. That might look remarkably like broken mosaic.
Yes, I think it definitely would be successful as a technique to mimic the background tiles. That's what made my mind say 'RUG!'
