BY Bettina Makalintal

The Handmade Rug Scene is Booming, Thanks to TikTok IMAGE BY RAEMILLERARTS1 VIA TIKTOK

There are many ways to make a rug, whether that's woven or hooked by hand, but it's the electric tufting gun sold by designer and artist Tim Eads that's entranced TikTok through speedy videos of yarn drawn across cloth.

Though Eads didn’t invent the tufting gun—mechanized tufting machines date to the 1930s—he’s been an integral figure in connecting it to the modern consumer market. Now, thanks to #rugtiktok, Eads is at the center of a rug making revival.

Samantha de Santos, who has been doing fiber arts for 10 years, had been saving for a tufting gun for two years. Eads's entry-level machines go for $275 and it hadn't been an urgent need, but she said, "When the pandemic started, I immediately bought it."

She'd made rugs using the simple punch needle process, but found it frustrating. What she likes about using a tufting gun—and what makes it so accessible—is the fact that you can "trace out whatever it is that you want to draw or make, and then you can just do it."

Though de Santos has shared art on Instagram for a few years, her following has picked up more rapidly on TikTok, where she's known as @agavefiber: In just one year, she's gathered eight times as many TikTok followers as she had on Instagram.

As with most craft videos, watching someone make a rug by any method is satisfying; you see something go from blank and empty to colorful and complete. As Eads mentioned, it's fast and the motion is repetitive, and the tufting gun adds interest if people haven't seen it before.

Some members of #rugtiktok are new to the art world. Anfernee Abad, a computer science student who shares his work as @pennyiech, started making rugs in July. Using a punch needle and learning through a video, Abad's Hello Kitty rug has over 230,000 likes on Tiktok.

The increased visibility of handmade rugs poses new opportunities for creators. Perhaps no piece of art on #rugtiktok better captures the current moment than Miffy Hornsby's "Fuck 2020" tapestry, a timelapse video which has gained at least 2 million views as of this writing.

Basia Kurlender is a graphic designer who started making rugs because she found that buying for her home were expensive. A full-time freelancer, Kurlender has seen gigs dry up recently. When she posted her rugs on Instagram, she realized selling them could be the next step.

Fiber art's image may now be changing. De Santos said TikTok has connected her to Gen Z in a way Instagram never did. The TikTok rug scene has emerged as visibly young: creators make rugs inspired by Frank Ocean, Travis Scott and Tyler, the Creator.

The recent movement has also broken free of historical stereotypes that tufting, embroidery, and needlepoint are exclusively done by women. “I think it’s also helping us transition away from being what has really been relegated as a woman's hobby.”

Eads has, for the most part, been able to meet the new demand for his products, though he's experienced delays recently due to shipping backlogs. Nevertheless, he's enjoying his role in the growing scene. "It's so much fun and it's really amazing to be a part of it," he said.

“I think if there wasn’t a pandemic, TikTok would have still contributed to an increase in it ... the pandemic has allowed people to have the time to actually act on that interest, versus just being interested in it.”

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