Guest Author - Iris ten Holder

When making knitted rugs, you may be looking for ideas that go beyond simply giving each segment a different color. In the round rugs I have been discussing in previous articles, the design is closely related to the way these rug are made, from the outside to the center rather than in the round. There are usually twelve sections.

Thus the design is mainly based on the way the colors are used in each section. Many variations are possible with as many color combinations as on can imagine. Generally it is good to take guidance from the colors scheme of the room. The rug should be in harmony with its surroundings. It can simply blend in using the same colors, or it can provide contrast, and function as a focal point in a room. This type of rug can also be successfully used in a corridor, a bathroom or an exercise room.

As for the design, using a theme opens up a whole new set of design possibilities. A theme is useful in exploring color combinations that otherwise might not have been considered. At least that is how I experienced this method of designing. It narrows the field to the colors of the theme and even the order in which they should be used.

I have developed a series of designs based on our planet earth, and natural features such as forests, skies, the seasons, ice and snow, bare trees, sunset, and autumn. I will describe my favorite design, without giving specific knitting details as this would just take away from the design aspect.

As a starting point I used the six main features of our earthly environment: oceans, soil, vegetation, skies, light from the sun and the sun itself. As the rug is round and the earth is round, I felt comfortable with this viewpoint and arranged the elements fairly symmetrically in a circle. I started at the bottom with a deep ocean blue and a few narrow white bands, representing light or surf, or what have you For the following segment I used browns and black for the soil, In the vegetation part I used various shades of green. For the sky I alternated blue and white. For the light of the sun, I used yellow and some orange, and finally for the sun, I used red. Due to the structure of the rug, the sun will be a band of red, either small or large. I used only a small portion of a section for the sun.

This is how knitting the design works. The number of stitches may vary from 50 to 60 for a medium rug. The first rows of the sections go all the way from the edge of the rug to the center. From then on at every center turn two stitches are left unknit. and thus the rows get shorter. When the section is finished and there are no more stitches to knit, the process starts over again by knitting all the stitches. When colors change within a section, let’s say every five rows, each colored band is shorter than the previous one. The proportions of these bands create the design.