Women's art and craft
According to bab.la, a translation service I often use, these kind of mats are called a "rag-mat". Have you got other names for them in english? We call it "tras-matta" which is a the direct translation.
My mother was a housewife, or maybe you could say she became one, slightly against her will after she married my father in 52. She was always an entrepreneur with ideas of her own and I remember they talked about her will of earning her own money. Somewhere in the sixties, she bought a loom with the purpose of weaving carpets, or mats made of cut up used clothes. She had my grandmother to cut them up for her (who got money for it) so she could devote herself to the actual design and weaving of the mats. She was never into simple patterns, she used more complicated patterns for making the mats thicker and she designed every carpet after the specific needs of the customer. They were all unique, created with a certain customer in mind. Her reputation grew and she got many customers.
Over the years she made quite a lot for herself too and for her family and when she died I took care of all the ones I could find in her house. In modern type of homes they can be hard to find use for, there's no draft from the floor or walls and you need space to use them for mainly decoration. I have dragged along with me about twenty-five of these carpets over the last thirty years into various apartments. Sometimes I could use some of them but mostly only two or three. I can't throw them away, they represent the craftmanship of my mother and I like having things that she and my father has made. Some, I've managed to give away to friends but the demand is low.
During the last six years on Öland they have been stored away and over the past year, they've lived in my cellar. Unfortunately the floor has been wet and the carpets were soaking when I looked last week. I asked my landlord, who live in an old place, if they wanted to have any but they said now at first but today, one of their sons wanted some to use in his music rehearsing room and in the studio he's going to build. I gave him six of the old carpets and hope they will come to good use, they will be perfect dampers for a studio.
I kept six or seven of the ones I particularly like, right now I'm drying them in my flat and will find a better way to use or store them. I think they are works of art and shouldn't be thrown away, just like that.
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