Sometime it can be fun to mix up your elicitation tools or prompts and try something fun. It is in that spirit that I am focusing on the types of rug I remember, who they belonged to, and what I remember about them.
This of course this could be any type of item that you remember encountering in almost all the significant houses and apartments you’ve entered at different times in your life. Lamps? Paintings? Bedding? Hats? The focus can be any common item that you tend to notice, and memorable ones you have encountered.
What do you think this says about you? Maybe there is an aesthetic you are drawn to. Maybe it is the engineering and the appreciation you have for the structure of the items. Are they nice things? Scary or unusual things? Out of all the ones you have encountered in life, which one or type is your favorite, which one disturbed you the most?
My Responses. Cue: Rugs
Woven Rag Rugs
These are my all time favorites. These are what my mother and grandmother used. Made from “scrap” or discarded cloth, the material is cut into strips, about an inch in diameter. The ends were folded over and sewn together, and the resultant long strip is wrapped into a ball, like a ball of twine. That is as far as I have seen the process done. At this point we would take the balls of fabric to a community group, church group, or individual with a loom to be woven.
There is something very comforting about having the sturdy blue denim of old blue jeans woven into a long entranceway rug that welcomes each footstep entering your home. The orange and brown work socks of my father were made into small rugs that were placed by bedsides to protect toes stepping from warm bed to cold floors.
Room Size Rugs vs. Wall-to-wall Carpeting
In the old farm houses my close and extended family lived in, the 8 x 12 or 10 by 12 area, machine-woven rug was the standard floor covering. These did not stand out as unusual to me. They were probably our family standard the had not quite given way from the early 1900s to the wall-to-wall carpet that became the norm in mid-20th century homes.
Canvas
Painted canvas always signaled avant guard, artistic vibes. It wasn’t common. In the more eclectic regions of my youthful travels I saw these in lofts and apartments. They have now become more common as permanent dyes and washable canvas are used for inexpensive floor coverings.
Hand Woven or Loomed or Hooked
The creme de la creme of carpet. I only saw these in museums and wealthy people’s homes until well into adulthood when I moved to the western U.S. and diversely populated urban areas where carpets from the middle east and Indian subcontinent were status items that many purchased and collected. Few people had artist signed persian carpets, but seeing one still makes my eyes pop with wonder as to the thousands of hours it took to make it and the known artistry of having a specific master weaver’s work shop.
And there is the beautiful craftsmanship found in American ceremonial and utility rugs and horse blankets made by tribal groups in the central plains and western U.S.
Hooked Rugs
Hooked rugs tend to have intricate designs, be smaller in dimensions, and be soft to the touch. I always think craftswoman, or man, when encounter these.
Crocheted Rugs
My mother crocheted rugs. The initial methodology was the same as as creating balls of fabric for woven rugs, but rather than being made on a loom, she would finish the rugs by crocheting an oval rug.
Material, Method, and Memory
Like most things you write about in memoir, your stories start with an idea: Aunt Ethel’s hysterically funny stories about her brothers and sister’s escapades decades ago. But what gets you to that idea? Stories from Aunt Ethel might be visually linked to the memory of sitting on the floor of your Grandmother’s living room. Tracing the design of a reddish-maroon leaf patterned rug, I can still see the sensible and sturdy, lace-up leather heels she wore, and the slightly baggy nylons that jiggled as she tapped her foot on the slightly worn carpet showing threads here and there.
It is only a few second memory of the carpet on Grandma’s floor but it connects you to mid-century design, clothing changes (baggy nylons?) and whether your aunt had thin or thick ankles. These are all things you can add to scenes and stories in your memoir that you wouldn’t have remembered without taking a few moments to thing about childhood memories of rugs. These bits are just things you can think about to bring back memories that surround the item. That carpet and shoe take you back to your life in the 1950s, 60s, or 70s that help you write from reality.
I guess I didn’t look people in the eye much, I looked at floors, and shoes. But these items told me a bunch about the finances, health, and style of my relatives; things no one ever told me but I could deduce from threadbare carpets, swollen ankles, and the jazzy design on a carpet.
Give the technique a try. Flatware or silverware. Window coverings. You might be surprised what memories these trigger.
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