penny rugs,primitive,sheep,pineapple,crows,stars

I'm Karen Martinsen and I live in the southeast part of Wisconsin
with my husband Doug, my biggest helper and supporter of my venture.
We have three married sons and five grandchildren!

I have enjoyed designing and making Penny Rugs for my own pleasure for the past few
years and want to share my fun with others...after giving away many of my hand crafts
we started selling consignment, then progressed selling to retail stores.
Along with my husband we have built our web-store, we do home shows and
craft shows as well with much success.
This is my passion and I hope it shows in my products

~ MADE IN THE USA ~
The designs are OUR OWN ORIGINALS and HAND STITCHED by ME
Our Grungy Hang Tags are hand drawn and painted by me as well

Most designs are cut free hand - no patterns - so each piece is
ORIGINAL and ONE OF A KIND so to speak
They are also MADE TO ORDER...we do not make a supply ahead
so your purchase is MADE JUST FOR YOU

All of our products are made from wool felt and backed
with the same fabric or homespun, double facing allows
the table runners, mats and wall hangings to lay flat

Our designs consist of Sheep, Willow Trees, Houses, Crows,
Pineapples, Stars, Flowers, Beehives & Bees, plus many more and for
Christmas we have Feather Trees, Gingerbread People, Snowmen, Mittens
plus many other designs

The wool felt is first washed in very hot water and then
dried in a hot dryer to give it the old nubby wool look.
Some colors are distressed with coffee or tea to give it that primitive aged look,
Pieces may have a slight variance in color depending on dye lot and preparation

We use very rich primitive colors like
dark gold, green, brick red, navy, black, bronze and ivory
brick red being our signature color - we try putting this on each design we make

Besides our Penny Rugs with have added many
Primitive - Colonial decorative items to our store to
help you decorate your Primitive-Colonial
and not so primitive home or give as a gift to someone you care about
like candles, prim fixins, homespun towels, primitive dolls, old bears just to name a few!

Karen and Doug

What is a Penny Rug?

Penny rugs earned their name during the 19th century and Civil war era,
using copper penny coins as templates to cut the wool and felt circles, or pennies
as the name implies, that formed the basis of the works.

The term 'rug' means something that covers or lays on top of,
so they were not only meant to use on the floor as one would think.

Circles of graduated sizes were stitched on top of
each other in twos or threes and then applied to a backing.
Sometimes penny coins were sewn into the rug corners for added weight.

The tabs are referred to variously as tongues, tabs,
cat tongues, lamb tongues, and petals and often were used as
"pen wipers" to keep the ink pen nibs clean as they were sold in dry goods stores.

Most of the penny rugs had simple shapes such as flowers or animals,
which were layered and appliquéd on the rug with a blanket stitch.

They were traditionally made from felted wool and were
not used on the floor as the name would imply, but as
decorative table rugs, bed top rugs, mantel hanging,
chamber stick mats, and were even used as wall hanging.