Maria's woven rugs

Maria, Ruth, Ernest and Lynn Fuller - my Grandmother, Mother, Uncle and Grandfather. I'm guessing that this photo was taken before 1929.

Here are two woven rugs that are special to me because they were made by my maternal grandmother, Maria Fuller (ne Dalke). After the 1929 stock market crash, the family had to move from Dearborn near Detroit back to the family farm at Enid, Oklahoma. Maria supported her family by raising chickens, canaries and fox terriers and also weaving rugs on a twelve heddle loom (I hope that is the correct term because I don't know very much about weaving on looms). And Grandad had to learn all about wheat farming!!

These rugs are very sturdy and, I think, were made from recycled fabric. The colour of the rugs was determined by the nature of the fabrics. The rugs I have seen have been mostly pink and green or brown and grey.

Here is another photo of the rugs and you can see that the colour is determined by the colour of the fabrics and to a lesser extent the colour of the warp strings. The warps are tied to make an attractive fringe. I drape these over the backs of chairs and like their rustic and practical nature. These two rugs probably date from after WWII when my parents had moved to Chicago and later Princeton. There were several dotted around the house and I must confess that I never took much notice of them, as children do.

Maria was from Mennonite stock and we still have relatives in Oklahoma although they of course are not Mennonites any longer. The farm, which I visited as a child, was sold when my grandfather went into care many years ago. Maria was not a quilter but my mother can remember playing under a quilting frame at neighbors' houses.