Braid Aids, anyone ever use them?
 

I cut out six jelly roll rugs this weekend, I started sewing on one of them today. I'm at the point where you fold the fabric and batting to sew your tube and make it one long strip/tube. I remember my mom making braided rugs while I was growing up and remembered she always had these metal silver things on the wool that would fold it into a tube as she braided. After a call to her and checking Google, I discover they are called braid aids, they have a cone shape to them, you feed your wool in one end and it comes out the other in a tube. Has anyone ever used these with cotton and batting to create the tube you need when making a jelly roll rug? If you have, did it work with ease or was it difficult? I'd love to hear if anyone has thought of this and already tried it and if it worked or not. Thanks in advance.

I hadn't heard of those before. They seem reasonably priced to try. I have heard of the jelly roll sasher, which I think is over-priced for what it is, but seems to have been made for the rugs. I have not personally tried them, but if they worked and I wanted to make a few rugs I would probably buy one since those are a pain to "tube". The batting really needs to be cut 2 1/4 instead of 2 1/2.

I think that there is only one size of Braid Aids available now. I believe that they only work up to 2 1/4" widths of strips. I think that the batting and fabric would feed differently through them, that is if they fit. Just my $.02 thoughts.

Janey - Neat people never make the exciting discoveries I do.

Thank you so much Tartan, I got one coming in the mail. I watched a few demo videos, looks to me like it is worth a try.

Bjbaxter, The batting does come both 21/2 and 21/4 inch. Amazon carries both.

Braid Aid and Braid Master are both available from Halcyon Yarns, but only use fabric strips up to 1.5".

I've been looking @ the sashers, which I think were originally designed for the QAYG method Ms. Rogers uses. It seems like, a long time ago, I saw somebody using a safety pin, or maybe a set of pins, in their ironing board to accomplish this. I would like to be able to do it for binding - get it started and then just pull though and press! Of course, now that I'm wanting to do it, I can't find the instructions...

I have the set of Pauline's Sashers . It's not as easy as it looks to use with batting and fabric together but doable. I think a big belt buckle would do the same thing.

That's great to know. Of course I have about 6 rolls of the 2 1/2" batting!

My Grandmother had her Brother cut off the ends of rat tailed combs, smooth the ends and put a hole in them. She threaded her fabric through these and braided and put them together at the same time. I regret that I never had her teach me how. She died 50 years ago and I am still using one of her rag rugs.

Here's a tutorial on how to use the sasher. I too think a big belt buckle would work as one.

https://www.google.com/search?client...rial#kpvalbx=1