My second rug I started today. It’s based off a silly little sci-fi series celebrating its anniversary this year. It’s got satellites, robots, and a mysterious time traveller! You know, Doctor Who!
As you can see, I’m still in the process of making that one. But I got all of that tufting done today. I’ll probably do an MST3K one some day, but I’m pretty proud of my first attempts, warts and all! What do you think, sirs?
I’m sorry I don’t know how to quote multiple people on here. So I am gonna just answer you all.
Firstly, these are designs I did in photoshop. The Twin Peaks one is my own design. And the Doctor Who one is a simplified version of the modernised diamond logo with the modern colours. I then projected them on a stretched out metre by metre canvas and traced their outlines with a sharpie.
Next you use a tufting gun which is a mechanism that sews a loop of carpet into the fabric. Two little scissors come out and cut the piles. This happens faster than you can see. The gun has its own forward momentum so you have to control the direction. Short bursts followed by the occasional long lines of colour filling.
The rug gets locked into place on the back with carpet glue and you back it in felt. Then you can carve it with a pair of clippers. I still haven’t fully figured that part out yet. It’s a LOT of stress and growing pains up front. But it’s also very zen and hyper focusy. So I love it.
Here’s me being a dork with the gun. I was trying to channel my inner Zap Rowdower.
