5066C and Saturday 6061C
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Laura White crochets rugs at the Silver Dollar City National Harvest & Cowboy Festival.[/caption]
Road to California 2017 is offering several “non-quilting” classes and one of those will be LauraJane White’s Pleachét classes. Pleachét is a technique used to build heirloom rugs from strips of old or new fabric. The fabric is loaded onto a needle — RugBeeRugNeedle TM — and crocheted back off with carpet warp, leaving the material standing on edge to create plush rugs, chair pads and trivets.
The Pleachét process and the needle that is used, were designed by LauraJane’s grandmother, Laura Elizabeth Johnston. Her grandmother used it to carpet the family farmhouse, wall to wall, in Windsor, Missouri around the turn of the 19th Century.
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LauraJane’s grandmother, Elizabeth Johnston, at a craft show in the early 30’s/40’s in the midwest[/caption]
LauraJane remembers her grandmother dying her own wool strips and crocheting rugs, but is was LauraJane’s sister, Shirley Wood, who taught LauraJane the process. Shirley and LauraJane worked side-by-side for many years at the 1880’s themed craft park, “Silver Dollar City,” teaching and making their beautiful rugs.
The Pleachét Booth will be located at 2H in the Exhibit Hall and will feature the many styles of Pleachét from round, rectangle, and oval rugs to chair pads and trivets in both floral and geometric designs. Pleachét tools will also be available. LauraJane enjoys interacting with her customers, sharing her family legacy and demonstrating a primitive craft that much of the world has never seen. 
In her classes, LauraJane will help her students create their own family heirlooms utilizing the Six Easy Steps of Pleachét:
*Choosing fabric and it’s preparation is key.
*Cutting appropriate width-size determining what your
project will become.
*Proper loading of the fabric onto the rug needle to insure the
neatness of your rug.
*Starting with the simplest of crochet stitches a chain stitch
thus determining the shape of your project.
*Building the art work, one row at a time.
*Learning to finish your edges properly.
LauraJane hopes her students will learn “to embrace the importance of keeping the primitive arts alive in an all too disposable minded society” by discovering a new outlet to express their personal creativity in a one-of-a-kind, work of art.
This will be LauraJane’s first time at Road to California. She said she has heard that Road “is the creme de la creme of fiber art festivals” and that she is “so looking forward to this show.”
To learn more about LauraJane and the Pleachét technique, please visit her web site.
]]>Tags: Fabric Strip Crochet, Family Heirloom, Pleachét, RugBeeRugNeedle TM
