Solo Rags to Rugs

[Dove Brown]

50 Fall 516

Dove closed the door on the fog, hung up her damp cloak to dry, pulled off her equally damp boots, and padded barefoot across the cold stone floor of the cottage to the chest. Being out in the fields all day in this weather meant that the fine droplets of water that formed the seemingly endless fog gathered on, and soaked into, every inch of her clothing. She pulled dry clothes from the chest, changed out of her wet ones, built up the fire, and wrapped a blanket round her shoulders. Digging into the chest again, she pulled out a bag of rags and took them over to the table. Taking a seat on one of her chairs and tucking her feet up under her to keep them off the cold floor, she began to sort out the rags and cut them into long strips with her knife.

Here was a pair of trousers with one leg shredded from the knee down. She trimmed the freyed edges off the shreds and then sliced up the good leg and the half remaining bad leg. Here was a shirt worn down to bare threads from long use. She turned it over in her hands, seeking the least worn parts so that she could cut it without it disintigrating on her. Here were bits and pieces, offcuts from a larger project, too small for normal use. She took needle and thread and sewed the scraps together to form their own long strip that wavered and drifted from one colour to another.

She continued to sort, and cut, and sew, until she had three strips so long that they fell off the edges of the table and puddled on the floor around her. Finally, she gathered one end of each of the three strips into her hand and knotted them together with the same simple knot that she used in the end of a length of thread.

[Dove Brown]

Dove uncurled herself from the chair, gathered up the knotted end of the strips, and started towards her bed towing the strips behind her. She got a few paces across the floor and then met unexpected resistance. She turned to look back, still holding the knot, and saw that the puddled strips had tangled around the legs of the table. With a sigh, she dropped the knot on the floor and went back to sort out the mess. Eventually, she had it all straightened out, and collected the knot again. This time she moved almost sideways towards the bed so that she could keep an eye on the uncoiling and dragging strips behind her.

Once she finally reached the bed, she tied the knot to the head of the bed and went back to roll up each strip in turn and lay the rolled cloth on her bed as well, each roll carefully separated from the other two. Then she climbed onto the bed herself, careful not to disturb the strips. She studied them, then nodded to herself, gathered her concentration in both hands, and began to plait the strips together. She plaited her own hair every morning to keep it out of her way, but this was a longer plait than anything she had ever done before, and the very length of it made it more difficult. She not only had to move the strands in the right order, but she had to make sure that they stayed coiled, and didn't tangle within their coils, while at the same time unwinding the coils enough to get the braid done without the coil catching in the actual plait. Her tongue poked out of the corner of her mouth in concentration as she worked. The damp and the cold of the weather made her long for something to cover the chilly stone floor of her cottage, and this - if it was successful - was the simplest way to make a rug that she had come across.

[Dove Brown]

Dove edged absently backwards as she worked and the plait grew longer. She only noticed her own movement when she hit the end of the bed and had to break her concentration in order not to fall off. A wry smile tugged at her mouth and she slid off the bed to work better, though she was careful to head away from the fire on the hearth. Two sides of the room later, she finally ran out of material to plait and looked up. She laid the end of the plait down and paced off the length, hoping that it would be enough. Her hands cramped from the repetitive work, and the gnawing hunger in her belly reminded her it had been a long time since her midday meal.

She sighed, flexed her hands, and rubbed them until the cramps faded, then left the plait where it lay and went to find some food. She dug some eggs, dripping, and bread out of the chest, and took them over to the fire. The table was still covered in rags, so she worked from a plate on the floor. She sliced off a thin piece of dripping, dropped it in the pan, and put the pan over the fire. The dripping shrank slowly in the heat, melting from white to clear, and then suddenly, the white part vanished all at once. Dove cracked two eggs with the back of the knife, dumped the contents into the pan, then grabbed a fork and scrambled the yolks and whites together as they cooked. She slid the messy result onto the plate, then cut a slice of bread and tossed that in the pan to sop up the fat and the last of the egg. When the underside of the bread was nicely brown and crispy, she flipped it over and let the other side brown to match.

[Dove Brown]

When she got too impatient to wait any longer, she dumped the bread onto the plate with the eggs. It wasn't as brown as she liked, nor as evenly crispy, but she was hungry enough not to care. It was hot and filling, and with the fog and the curfew she hadn't been able to forage as much. She devoured the lot, washed plate, pan, and tools, and packed them away, along with the rest of the bread.

Having cleaned and dried her hands at the washbasin, she returned to the plait and tied off the loose ends with another simple knot. Gathering it up in loops and folds, she untied it from the bed, hauled it over to the table where her sewing things were, and piled it around her chair. She sat down, grabbed one end of the plaited strips and began to roll the plait up. She was starting the third layer when the centre knot fell out of the spiral and undid her work. Dove swore under her breath and started again. This time, she paused as she completed each circuit and added a rough couple of stitches to hold it together, before she went on to the next circuit. As she worked her way down the plait, the disc of tight packed, multicoloured, cloth that formed under her fngers grew wider and needed more than one stitch to hold it together. Instead of the original single stitch, she found herself making one on each of the four quarters, constantly fastenng her thread on and off to prevent wastage as she worked her way around the edge.

The rolling and sewing seemed to last forever, and her hands were beginning to cramp again when she reached for more plait and came up with nothing. She had used it all. She put the last stitches in to fasten the end knot into place on the edge and sat back. The rug over her lap was small, and rough, and round, but perfectly serviceable, and she smiled in satisfaction as she ran her hands over it.


Receipt1 x rug (common) - 1 gm

[Dove Brown]

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Dove Brown

Skills

• Sewing 2
• Observation 2
• Weaving 3
• Planning 1
• Organisation 1
• Medicine 1
• Cooking 2
• Cleaning 1
• Endurance 2

Lores

• Making a rag rug from scraps
• Sewing a coil of cloth together
• Medicine: rubbing out cramps

Miscellaneous

• 1 rug, common - 1 gm

Comments: Testing the new self-grading