Wagon Wheel Rug Making with Francoise Ouimet

This piece shows Francoise Ouimet, of Valley Falls, NY, talking about and making wagon wheel rugs. This kind of rug making, traditional in Ouimet's French-Canadian family (in Quebec and later the North Country of northern NY), served to make pieces for the home that are both practical and beautiful. Especially during the quieter winter months, women in Ouimet's family would prepare materials by cutting long-used curtains, clothing, and etc. into strips and sewing them together to make the long rags from which the rug would be woven on a wagon wheel frame. This would be a way of making old, worn out cloth items useful again by recycling them into something new and necessary--in this case the rugs needed for warmth in the house. Ouimet talks about the rug making tradition and methods, as well as related family history related, and she shows the process and examples of rugs.