Photo by Kevin A. Roberts
When Jim Peregrin and Danté Hunter take their hand-woven wares to indie craft festivals, they’re often asked, “Two guys make these?” Yes, they do. On two looms in a small room in their apartment, The Weaving Guys recycle abandoned, forgotten materials into vibrant textiles. This year alone they have woven more than 1,000 pounds of sock scraps and a few thousand neck ties.
The vintage nature of their materials gives them staying power. Peregrin recalls a customer from 20 years ago running into him at a market and saying, “I still have your rug.” It must, Peregrin says, be denim.
How did you each start weaving?
Jim: My grandma and grandpa did this at least 50 years ago; that’s how they made their living. We were never allowed to touch their loom, never allowed to weave, nothing. About 30 years ago, I decided I wanted to learn to weave. I looked up the looms, and the company that they bought their loom from in 1918 still made looms.
Danté: Being his partner. We’ve been together for going on 6 years; I started about 6 years ago.
Jim: And he picked it up quick. He’s very good. Sometimes he’s better than I am.
How did you start weaving together?
Jim: ‘Cause I did it, and he was sitting there watching me. I had three looms, and he didn’t like sitting there. He said, “Teach me how.” So I did. It isn’t difficult, really isn’t.
Danté: No. The other thing was, the other guy who used to help you had messed up one, and I caught it in the rug. It bothered me, and I wanted to fix it. So he was like, “Well, go ahead and do what you have to do.” So I just tried my best to fix it, and I did.
How long does it take to make a rug?
Danté: I guess on average it’ll take anywhere between 6 hours…
Jim: In our prep time, we do count the washing. Because we get the material, we wash it, we cut it. And then each one of these colors is cut into a strip, then I sew them together by hand. A 51-inch rug probably takes me about 9 hours.
Danté: That’s from start to finish. From acquiring the materials, weaving it into the rug, taking it off, tying the ends, trimming them… Every rug varies because some stuff is easier to work with than others, and some stuff is faster to work with than others.
Photo by Kevin A. Roberts
Jim Peregrin (right) has woven for much of his life, while Danté Hunter (left) is a relative newcomer to the art—but they both make a mean rug.
What’s the coolest material you’ve used in a rug?
Jim: One of the coolest things I ever used… I got an old chenille bedspread. On the tag it said, “Mom and dad’s wedding, 1942.” If we get a piece of history like that, we staple it to the price tag, so people know where it came from.
Danté: We work with a lot of neck ties. Little bit more difficult, but I like working with the neck ties.
What about a material makes you look at it and think, “I’m going to make a rug out of that?”
Jim: I look for the ugliest piece of material I can find. The ugly material, for some reason, when you weave it, takes on a life of its own. It’s a brand new life, and sometimes it’s beautiful once it’s done.
Danté: Something with a lot of color.
What gets you inspired, and what gets you excited about a rug?
Jim: The finished product. To see what it goes from and ends up. We like to see our rugs go to good homes.
Danté: And to see people excited. When I see somebody excited about a rug we do, that makes me excited and makes me want to make more.
Jim: I hate to see material thrown away. I think another thing that gets us going, especially in the last 5-6 years, is the green movement. Because people throw so much stuff away. And it was really funny—when I first started doing shows again about six or eight years ago, I told people these were green rugs because we use stuff to keep it out of the landfills. We’ve both picked up stuff on the road, washed it, made rugs out of it.
People kept saying, “But we don’t want green rugs. Can you make another color?”
Find The Weaving Guys' rugs at their Etsy page, on Facebook, or at Union Studio (1605 Tower Grove, 314-771-5398).
