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How the Rugmaker’s Handbooks Came to Be

By Master Rugmaker, Diana Blake Gray

Thirty years ago, I didn’t set out to write about traditional rag rugs. I was a working professional (scientist, planner, technical advisor) who enjoyed all sorts of fiber arts as a creative past time. When I’d come across an old Bohemian Braid rug, I thought I could just go to the library and find a book on how to make it. Of course, there wasn’t such a book, so because the rug was pretty old, I tried the Idaho State Museum’s library and spent untold days poring over old publications with no better luck. What I did find, was the occasional paragraph about another old rug making method that had not made it into the modern books. I searched antique stores, and sought out textile curators of museums all over the country, but no one had any useful information. Instead, they had more examples of rugs that they couldn’t identify. Slowly, I collected quite a list of the old rugs, that as far as the modern textile world was concerned, simply didn’t exist.

Having always wanted to “know how things work” it became a hobby to re-create the old rugs from the sparse clues available, and eventually I did manage to figure out how to make most of the rugs. The Bohemian braid was the toughest, and it was probably ten years between the time I’d seen the old rug and finally perfected the technique. Unbeknownst to me, I’d turned into a textile structuralist.

When time and circumstances allowed my husband and I to pioneer a home in the Idaho mountains, we began “Rafter-four Designs” and opened rug shops. So many people would see the rugs and ask for directions, that I began to understand that these old methods had meaning for other people as well. In 1984, we published the first booklet “Crocheted Rag Rugs for the Beginner” which was shortly followed by others. Eventually, Rafter-four Designs became a mail-order and then internet business, with customers asking for directions for more and more of the rug making methods.

After 28 titles, in three different formats, I began contemplating how to really document these methods, in a more permanent fashion. The idea of a series of reference books developed into the “Rugmaker’s Handbooks” with the goal of documenting as many of the old methods as possible. By partnering with a distributor, the information would be much more widely available. Even though the series is only four years old, the books are already being used by universities in fiber arts programs.

Essentially, the Rugmaker’s Handbooks are the books I was looking for 30 years ago. They include the directions that make the traditional methods accessible for the modern rug maker and textile explorer. The are not craft books. Instead, they are reference books that will explain how the method works and point out the possibilities of each technique so that the reader can take it from there.