Rag rugs or red rags

During the general sorting out of house contents leading up to the house move (date still uncertain) I've accumulated the usual pile of clothes that aren't suitable to give to many charity shops.  What to do with them?  It annoys me to have to throw them out with the general rubbish.

The Salvation Army and Oxfam do recycle textiles, selling on unwearable clothes or fabrics as raw materials.  They can be shredded and used as insulation materials, in roofing felts, padding, or used as cloths in a range of industries.  Wool can be reclaimed and made into yarn by specialists.  TRAID takes torn or stained clothing and remakes into one-off garments which are then sold under the TRAIDremade label.

Boujad rug from Flickr/Luciano Ghersi

Taking TRAID's initiative a step further are women in Morocco who are using pieces of material from old clothes to creating rugs in the Essaouira tradition.  They use a hook to knot the pieces of fabric on to a canvas backing and let their imaginations create beautiful ethnic-style rugs in geometric designs.  Développement Durable has some good pictures of the colourful end product.

There are other ways to make rag rugs - braiding, crochet - but I'm no crafty expert.  I will not be making us a rug out of the odd sock mountain, but I'll be giving them to Oxfam rather than to landfill.