Penny Rug-Fabric Cutters vs Strips
Punch Rugs, Rug Hooking, Rug Making Tools, Wool Strips
May 24, 2008
Unlike their name, penny rugs are not made without some serious expense.
Many people see the popularity of penny rugs and want to try crafting them for themselves. Once you begin looking into it you realize that you will have some choices to make.
The rugs are made from using numerous strips of finely cut wool. Penny rug makers use fabric cutters that will cut four very thin strips in seconds. You can find the cutters online for anywhere from a hundred dollars for a used tool to several hundred for a new one.
If you are considering making your first penny rug you have to ask yourself if it is worth the investment when you may find it isn't your cup of tea.
Also online you can find wool strips already cut. They average about ten dollars per bundle of fifty strips and can be bought in a particular shade of a particular color. This saves you the cost of the fabric cutter initially but can add up quickly. It would only take ten different colors to total a hundred dollars but you don't have the cost of the tool plus the cost of the fabric. Many of the people who sell wool strips online dye the wool themselves which makes the variety of colors much wider than it would be purchasing fabric yourself. While you can always dye your own fabric, it takes some of the tedious steps out of the process and lets you get right to the business of making a rug.
Purchasing the fabric cutter can also have its advantages in that if you find you don't care for rug making, you can make money selling the wool strips you cut online. While you may have paid a hundred dollars for the cutter you can generally make your money back by selling ten to fifteen bundles.
You purchase a fabric cutter and try your hand at rug making. You find it isn't for you and you don't want to sell fabric strips online to recoup your investment. You can sell the cutter itself. If you have looked at the online auction sights you will see there are not a lot of cutters offered out there and usually there ends up a bidding war for the few offered at any one time. Because of this it is a pretty safe bet to think you can get at least a large amount of your investment back.
