Bed rug. Culture: American. Dimensions: 93 1/4 x 89 in. (236.9 x 226.1 cm). Maker: N. L.. Date: 1796.Bed rugs (referred to as "ruggs" during the late eighteenth century) are completely home-manufactured products. The wool yarn pile is needleworked (not hooked, as was once assumed) in running stitch on a base of handloomed wool or linen. Most often, the base is a wool blanket, the surface of which is entirely obscured by embroidery. All the wool used for making bed rugs such as the Museum's two examples (13.207) was most likely shorn from local sheep. The fleeces were then washed, carded, spun, and dyed by the rug maker.Although a few extant bed rugs are embroidered with stitches that lie flat to the surface of the base, the majority have a looped pile that may have been either clipped or left uncut. Both of the Museum's bed rugs have cut pile faces. The one illustrated here has some random loops left uncut: the unevenness of the surface seems to indicate that the loops were made with