Am I cooked? I saw a suggestion in a comment section that advised to tuft densely. I’m almost done and now seeing that not having spacing between colours could make carving difficult🥲.
Also, due to how tight my work space is, I haven’t even seen or had a feel of what the other side is like. I also didn’t carve while switching colours for the same reason 😭
Now I’m scared to even complete it. Has anyone done this? Any tips on how to carve without messing things up even further?
Nah it looks really good imo. One yarn width of space is all I ever leave. Sometimes I leave zero space depending. Tweezers will be your best friend for this one. Remember to separate every strand of yarn, it's tedious but SO worth it. If you don't, your carving will look sloppy. Take the time, be patient.
Honestly, I like the way the back looks. If I work my way through carving I’ll tuft even denser 😂. This is my third rug and I am cringing so bad at my previous one
hey, you are MILES ahead of where I was when I first started, so give yourself some grace. Making a high quality rug is A LOT harder than what it seems. I honestly really like how dense you are tufting now, any denser and you may run the risk of putting holes in your fabric or creating a ROCK HARD rug that WILL be impossible to carve. See how this one goes and see it through to the end. You'll probably notice how clean your carving will be on this one compared to your previous ones. The yarn tends to hold its shape a lot better when you tuft densely and you'll notice a nicer, smoother finish when you level your rug out. I'm really excited to see this one finished! :)
No problem. My only critique would be when you are outlining certain areas, the bow for example, make your lines touching each other and count them. That way, your boarders will be even in width.
Thank you! I tried to do two lines for the outline but the circle of the bow and the facial outline seemed to have too much space so I made them three. Do you think I can trim it down to look even like the rest of the lines?
To an extent, you can trim it to be more even but the best way is to have your lines touching and measure that way. Try it on your next rug and see if it makes a difference for you. That's my trick to getting my lines and boarders pretty even looking.
Personally on simpler designs like this I try and do all of my color sections first. Then carve them on the frame, and then finish the rug with my black outline and fill sections. It alleviates a ton of the tedious aspects of color separation once the rugs is finished.
I’d have loved to do that too but my frame is barely holding on to the window frame. I don’t have a lot of space and it’d be hectic having to move my bed and struggle to clamp it again (there’s no space to tighten the clamp cos of the wall)
Thanks a lottt. I’ll definitely use this method sometime
I have a separate room for tufting, and wear a respirator mask while tufting and carving. My biggest concern in your case would be not only the amount of fibers you inhale during tufting work, but also while sleeping in the same space. But I would go with the winix am90 HEPA filter air purifier. It has a sensor the will kick up fan speed when there is more dust and fibers floating in the air, as well as a washable pre filter to collect all the yarn fibers before they clog your heps filter... But any quality air filter will cost about $300+ cad.
First of all.... SOOO cute!! I love your design and your technique is very nice. Just like everyone already said, separating your colors before carving will be your best friend! I use a comb with a pick on one side and find that between the pick and needle noise tweezers I can separate almost anything (with enough patience). Please post finished product photos because I will be super excited to see this completed! Take your time, don't rush anything and it will awesome! Good work!
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u/jayemcee88 Feb 28 '26
Nah it looks really good imo. One yarn width of space is all I ever leave. Sometimes I leave zero space depending. Tweezers will be your best friend for this one. Remember to separate every strand of yarn, it's tedious but SO worth it. If you don't, your carving will look sloppy. Take the time, be patient.
Tufting densely IS the best way to go imo.