lineage
the tufted rug

An artisan, unnamed, tufting a Tai Ping carpet with a motorized hand-tufting gun, late 1950s. Photo RayTaiPing, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

The tufted rug

18 traced influences · 3 sources

dig the tufted rug

What it took directly

  1. documentedThe hobby tufting-gun boom took from Tim Eads, who found a supplier for the machine in 2018 and opened his own store"In 2018, he found a supplier for the machine and soon opened up his own store, which is now a leading supplier of tufting tools and materials." Jaxson Stone, Metropolis (March 2021)
  2. statedTrish Andersen's tufting took from Tim Eads's website"Tim starting that website changed the game," Trish Andersen, to Metropolis (2021)
  3. documentedClaire Molenda's rugs took from TikTok videos of people making rugs, during the COVID-19 lockdown"But it wasn’t until the COVID-19 lockdown in March that she got serious about it. “I just totally went for it,” she says. After seeing a few videos on TikTok of people making rugs, she bought a tufting gun and started trying to make one herself." Diana Budds, Curbed (December 2020)
  4. documentedTufting comes from Catherine Evans, who in 1895 turned candlewicking into a new technique"At fifteen, in 1895, Catherine kept her pledge. Rather than precisely duplicating the difficult candlewick method, she actually developed a new technique, a variation on candlewicking, called tufting" Randall L. Patton, historian, Kennesaw State University (2009)
  5. documentedCatherine Evans's first tufted spread took from an old candlewick bedspread she saw at a cousin's house in 1893"While visiting a cousin in 1893, twelve-year old Catherine saw an old candlewick bedspread that had been in the family for many years." Randall L. Patton, historian, Kennesaw State University (2009)
  6. documentedThe tufted bedspread trade took from Lizzie Parmalee, who carried a sample spread to Atlanta and sold Rich's department store on it"Carrying a sample spread, Parmalee quickly boarded a train for Atlanta. She soon convinced Rich's, Atlanta's signature department store, to try selling some of the spreads. Rich's ordered twenty-four spreads." Randall L. Patton, historian, Kennesaw State University (2009)
  7. documentedThe small tufted rug took from modified bedspread-tufting machines at Addie Evans's firm and others, late 1940s and 1950s"Small rugs kept Addie Evans's firm solvent and profitable through the late 1940s and 1950s. Evans Manufacturing and other firms used modified spread tufting machines to create the small rugs." Randall L. Patton, historian, Kennesaw State University (2009)

What it learned to do

  1. statedThe tufting machine took from the women's hand-tufting trade, once men saw it was worth something"The men began to notice that the ladies had something worthwhile and began talking about machines to make spreads." Catherine Evans Whitener, quoted by Randall L. Patton (2009)
  2. documentedAddie Evans learned from her sister-in-law, Catherine Evans"Addie learned tufting from her sister-in-law and initially worked with Catherine to make spreads." Randall L. Patton, historian, Kennesaw State University (2009)
  3. statedHome tufters learned from Addie Evans, who drove the countryside teaching anyone who wanted to learn"I would put my young children in the buggy and go throughout the countryside and teach people how to tuft," Addie Evans, 1980 interview, quoted by Randall L. Patton (2009)
  4. documentedDrake Sweeney's tufting learned from the Tuft the World community and videos of rug-makers in India and Japan"He looked to the Tuft the World community, as well as videos of rug-makers in India and Japan, to learn more techniques." Diana Budds, Curbed (December 2020)
  5. documentedClaire Molenda (tufter) learned from her father, a comic artist, who taught her to sew"When she was young, her father, who was a comic artist back then, taught her how to sew" Diana Budds, Curbed (December 2020)
  6. documentedClaire Molenda's rug designs learned from Victor Vasarely, the quilters of Gee's Bend, and Magdalena Suarez Frimkess"Molenda’s influences include the artist Victor Vasarely, the quilters of Gee’s Bend, and the ceramicist Magdalena Suarez Frimkess." Diana Budds, Curbed (December 2020) — influences on this artist, not on tufting as a whole
  7. inferredTufting's simpler method comes from Catherine Evans having no formal textile training, perhaps"Catherine's lack of any sort of formal training in the textile arts might have actually helped her create a somewhat simpler method" inferred — Jean Manly of Dalton's historical society suggested it to Patton; Patton reports it as a possibility, and nobody can know

The tradition it sits in

  1. documentedMechanized tufting comes from Dalton, Georgia, where the first mechanized tufting machine was invented"Dalton, Georgia, where the first mechanized tufting machine was invented." Jaxson Stone, Metropolis (March 2021)
  2. documentedDalton, Georgia comes from the tufted bedspread trade, before it became the carpet capital"Dalton, in turn, became the tufted bedspread capital and the carpet capital of the world." Randall L. Patton, historian, Kennesaw State University (2009)
  3. inferredThe handheld hobby gun comes from Dalton's tufting machines, by way of the rug industry"While the handheld tufting machine originated in the rug industry" inferred — Metropolis says the handheld machine originated in the rug industry and the first tufting machine in Dalton; Patton traces Dalton's spread machines into rugs. No source names the gun's own inventor or connects it to Dalton directly

Where the whole form comes from

  1. documentedTufting comes from candlewicking: raised tufts of thick yarn on a spread"The candlewick method created a pattern of raised tufts of thick yarn on the surface of the spread." Randall L. Patton, historian, Kennesaw State University (2009)

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