Pilgrims and Pioneers: The story of Penny Rugs

Welcome To Pilgrims and Pioneers!

After many years of researching my family geneaology I have been lucky enough to discover actual information about my relatives that lived in the Pilgrim Era and the Pioneer Era- while many people also have realtives from those eras- many do not know their names or where they lived- actually seeing the proof in print makes you much more aware of who they really were.
After discovering these relatives it of course made me curious to learn more about the eras that they lived in and what their lives were like as, the history I learned in grade school had long since been forgotten.
I decided to start this blog for others who are also interested in these eras.
Some of the information here will be actual facts about my realtives and some will be information about the eras in general that I have found on the web.
I hope you will enjoy traveling back in time with me!

Saturday, March 1, 2008

The story of Penny Rugs

Going back to the 19th century it is belived that penny rugs were made as a way of using up remnants of used woolen clothing that was not big enough to cut into strips for rug hooking.
The term "penny rug" came to be because of using coins of that era as templates for the "pennies". On older penny rugs the circles were stitched onto feed sacks or pieces of burlap.
Not all penny rugs were made up of circles- there are many that are wool applique scenes, fruits, animals and many other scenes.
Many penny rugs were made with decorative edging pieces in elongated pieces of wool that resembled " tongues" or "lamb's ears".
Penny rugs in the early days were not used on the floor but rather used on beds for warmth or to decorate table tops or hearths and mantles.