The Airlyne Rug Maker and the competition winners

Thank you everyone for taking the time to enter the mystery object competition. It is indeed a rug maker. In fact it is the "Airlyne" home rug maker.

I was a bit naughty and as some of you pointed out I photographed it turned upside down. When it is the right way up it is attached to a table and the strap is put around your foot and the rug maker is operated by pulling down with your foot. The needle comes up through the plate on which your canvas or other backing sits, drawing the tuft through. I rather unsuccessfully tried to take some photos of this but it didn't go too well I'm afraid. Trying to operate the rug maker and hold a camera steady at the same time isn't an easy task!

Here's a really bad photo of the needle coming through the plate. The tufts would be threaded through it.

The rug maker specifies that it is for use only with 'Airlyne' Axminster wool and I'm very fortunate to also have a skein of this yarn. Obviously I'll never be able to use the yarn but it is wonderful to have the full set of equipment and materials.

 The artwork on the skein band is simply beautiful 

There are further instructions on the reverse of the band explaining further the pile or tuft length required depending on whether you plan to make a rug or a full carpet and how much wool it takes.

What makes this a particularly neat and tidy story is that Axminster rugs and carpets are produced in the town of Axminster, which is situated in Devon, just like the John Arbon mill. Production was started back in 1755 by a gentleman called Thomas Whitty. Unfortunately a fire destroyed the factory and it was only 102 years later in 1857 that a carpet manufacturer happened to hear the story and finally in 1937, carpet manufacturing began again in Axminster. And whilst not all their carpets are 100% wool anymore, 90% of the wool that is used is sourced from British farms. So quite an appropriate story for this month of Wovember!

So back to the business at hand, will the following lucky winners please contact me as soon as possible on susan (at) susancrawfordvintage (dot) com with your name and mailing address:

Helen McIntosh
Judith
Sandp
Cottonon
TwoWednesdays
Mags
and as I mis-counted the number of tickets I had available, also Carol.

Well done everyone.

for now
Ruby xx