Instructions or video of using a speed shuttle hook?

[tombear]

I've been poking about the net looking for instructions or better still a video showing how to use a speed shuttle for rug making? I picked one up in a charity shop for a Pound but apart from the fact that its used from the underside of the piece I've found nowt about actually using one.

ATB

Tom

 

[Toddy]

Speedhooks make yarn or thin rag strip clooty mats.
Proddy rugs I think they're called in the North of England, but the name has different connotations up here.

Basically you need an open-ish weave fabric stretched tightly on a frame. Draw your design on the back of the 'rug' fabric.
The speed hook works quickly for two reasons. One it uses a long length to create looped pile, not cut pile, and secondly it makes the loops of uniform height.
Thread the yarn/thin fabric strip through the eye of the ring on the top of the shuttle and pull out a length of a maybe a finger long through the 'needle'. Hold (some people knot) that length on the back of the fabric. Push the shuttle against the fabric and hold it there while you slide the right hand (well, mine's right hand, whichever side is the slide) part with the threaded needle through the fabric. Pull back and you should have a loop on the other side held in place mostly by the weave and the doubled yarn/weaving fabric. Move to the next position and slide in again.
I have seen a hook with a kind of grip lever on one side too, but I think tbh, it's a use what you have and learn to do so effectively simply by practice.
I know I got quite fast with it, but ach, the rugs are dirt collectors. My Mum and my Gran had them as mats at the back doors, and they certainly stopped mud being trailed through the houses. They don't wash easy, they don't hoover well, they need hung up and beaten to clean them. We don't have beating frames near houses any more, I used the gable wall last time I had to beat a rug clean.
Vacuums are very good things

Old tshirts make good long lengths for the rugs; you can cut many of those in a spiral about an inch wide and if you give it a pull the fabric curls around itself into a tidy tube.

Surely we can find a video showing how to do it clearly ? Might be under speedhooks....that's rugs, not fishing, iimmc.

The kids will have fun with it though

atb,
M

p.s. wax the speedshuttle thing before you try sliding it. It makes a tremendous difference

 

[tombear]

Cheers! That's far more thn I've been able to find on the net, I've looked at loads of vids but not one had the speed hook.

i picked up a lot of cheap synthetic wool and the eldest used it on some of the rug backing stuff I acquired for a song, it took him a age but he finished it, just a black and white design he uses in his room but he enjoyed it. We've been to several museums recently that we're full of rag rugs, and a lot of enthusiastic staff members making them. The middle son wants to have a go as well and we discovered that my grandad used to make them back in the 30s and 40s. Back home in Derbyshire it was mainly miners who made them.

I've sourced some of the white backing stuff, about 6 yards ( for peanuts :-D) and some hessian both old sacks and off the roll from Queens St Mill and over the years have ended up with a couple of tools ( carboots ). I've got a fair amount of heavy tape for edging as well now.

I now need to amass a decent amount of wool rags to cut up. I saw a lovely home done job in a charity shop , unfortunately sold waiting for the owner to finish shopping, where they had heavily felted the wool first to the point that the strands looked like little sausages. Lord knows how long it had taken someone, it was a good 4 foot by 8.

i wonder how warm a coat made of the stuff would be? With the back on the outside...

ATB

Tom

 

[Toddy]

You want wool rags ? or would wool offcuts do ?
I should really make hoods and hats and capes with a whole stash of stuff Tom, but I am swamped again with more linen shirts and redcoats coming in too (Ian got a cannon ) I've had enough, tbh.
I have an entire box load of squares and rectangles cut out to make a blanket, but there's at least another box load of the wool that I haven't even started on yet.
It wouldn't work with the speed hook though. That works really well with ripped out old jumpers however; it gives a kind of curly pile to the mat.
If you're cutting up fabrics to make matchbox sized pieces for a prodded through rug, a rotary cutter and self healing mat is definitely the way to go

M

 

[tombear]

Ians got a cannon?! How cools that! Herself still regrets not getting the 3.7" mountin gun when we had the chance. I still say we could have got the spoked wheels later. It was the pneumatic wheels that put her off. But I digress.

i saw those pizza cutter things in a lot of the vids, they do look the business. The self helping mats are the great, I got three A2 sized ones for the lads to keep them off my tarty one! I keep a beer mat sized one in my sewing box as ll.

its a very kind offer but I should be able to get some wool from my cronies at th charity shops, stuff that's not fit to sell. Knowing the good stuff you sent lay time I'd probably end up making 6 panel hats from it rather than let the lads chop it into strips! By the by would it be ok to send on the Grenwich we have to hand and the rest on later? It wouldn't all fit in one box anyway and herself would feel better with it in your hands. Currently it's in a crate in a passage way.

ATB

Tom

 

[Toddy]

He's looking for cannoneers too
We could get the lads into suitable kit ?

He already has the licence for black powder for the flintlocks but this is going to need a huge increase in the volume.
I know the mess is going to be ridiculous; black powder is filthy stuff.
He's going to have fun, isn't he ?

Oh yes please ? Can I help with postage ?

If you change your mind about the wool, let me know ?

atb,
M

 

[tombear]

if we weren't so far south I'm sure they would love it. They have been drilled in loading at a couple of events and the eldest has read quite a lot on the later 18th C where practice wasn't that disimilar.

We'll send the stuff up by my Hermes, so the cost will be trivial so no worries, it's he least we can do and well get on with finding the rest. I've asked T to bring a stout box home, although we may have something suitable in the storage room since post all the birthdays we dumped all the boxes the stuff arrived in there. I'll PM you about this as I've drifted well off topic!

ATB

tom