Forget about standard rugs and carpets. How about a rug for the wall if you need to jazz up your home?
Rugmebuddy co-founders Rusman Abdul Rasid and Shazwina Manmohan want you to think about the many ways a tufted rug can add artful character and colour to your home. Look down and around. Hang it on the wall.
When it comes to hand-tufted rugs, the creative possibilities are endless.
They also hope to one day create experimental tufted rug installations, and to collaborate with more visual artists, tattoo artists and textile designers.
In person, the couple’s infectious energy is like a breathe of fresh air to the art scene, which has been steadily paying attention to the their tufted rug creations.
The husband and wife team now have their tufted rugs sold through social media channels and also at an independent art retail space in Kuala Lumpur.
A year ago, the duo took the plunge and set up a tufting rug studio in Ara Damansara, Petaling Jaya.
Lockdown disruptions didn’t stop them from realising their dream in setting up a space to indulge their yarn fascination.
They were also inspired by female European artists who have experimented with tufted rugs, adding textures, layers, and a bit of chaos to what would otherwise be routine textile work.
“Yes, we get orders for custom rugs but I wish we get to do something that’s beyond what we normally see and are used to.
“There’s just something exciting about collaborating with our local artists, sharing knowledge and creating something different with tufted rugs,” says Shazwina, 27, adding that this is one way to elevate a decorative item to something more artistic.
The fine art graduate from the University of Gloucestershire in Britain admits that Rugmebuddy (founded in January 2021) is a labour of love that faced numerous challenges because of the pandemic.
But resilience and resourcefulness have played a huge part in keeping this small company ticking along.
Like most people around the world, the couple, who got married in December 2020, were home-bound due to the movement control orders. It was in the middle of the lockdown that Rusman, who hails from Sandakan, Sabah, came across a viral trend called “tufting” on social media platform TikTok.
In the wake of the pandemic, artisanal, DIY craft activities such as knitting and crocheting saw a resurgence in popularity. Tufting, most notably, also experienced a renaissance.
Tufting is a technique used to create soft, fluffy rugs. Its origins can be traced back to the ancient Persian and Oriental worlds, where artisans made tuft rugs by hand, using punch needles. These days, people use a tufting gun, a special device that shoots a needle into the fabric (known as monk’s cloth) up to 45 times per second.
“I initially saw posts on Instagram about this tufting craze on TikTok. When I checked it out, I was immediately drawn to the idea of making my own rugs by hand.
“You see, when I was a child in Sabah, it was only during festive celebrations and special occasions that your parents would take out the fancy carpets and rugs. And I always liked that.
“So when I watched those tufting videos on social media, it brought back childhood memories and it made me wonder if I could make my own rug. In Malaysia, not many people do custom rugs,” says Rusman, a multimedia graduate from Universiti Selangor.
Soon enough, the 31-year-old friendly chap, who has dabbled in photography, skateboarding and even construction, trawled the Internet to learn more about tufting.
Research was crucial, says Rusman, who saw his efforts leading to a solid start for this new venture.
A yarn to remember
In the early days, he purchased a cut-pile machine or a tufting gun, monk’s cloths and a collection of yarn to get a hands-on experience with tufting, while Shazwina punched the numbers and figured out the finances for a tufting business.
But she didn’t just play the humble accountant. Shazwina put her art background to use and provided her husband with unique designs for his tufting.
The couple started posting tufting videos on social media and slowly gained traction online, with people expressing interest in owning a custom tufted rug.
“We were getting a lot of orders. In the beginning, Rugmebuddy was purely an online thing. Rusman’s plan was to open a tufting business but he wanted to just try it out first.
“We didn’t want to really look into costings just yet. He started posting videos of him tufting and because he has lots of friends from the art industry, they started sharing his posts as well. The word got out and we had so many enquiries (about the rugs),” shares Shazwina.
What began as a side hustle in their studio-home quickly expanded into a proper business, with a designer and a helper hired. Today, Rugmebuddy receives between 15 and 20 custom tufted rug orders per month, with the cheapest starting at RM35 and the more elaborate rugs going beyond RM1,000.
According to the couple, the tufting process is quite simple. It all begins with the designer, who must ensure that the sketch or draft is suitable for tufting. A simple design, if applied correctly, is important.
Once the design is finalised, it will be projected onto the monk’s cloth and traced out.
Then the tufting begins using the cut-pile machine, and once completed, it is snipped from the monk’s cloth. The rug is then inverted and the monk’s cloth edges are cut and secured with latex adhesive (a process called backing). Finally, it is sheared, shaved, and packed.
Rusman says a 40cm tufted rug can take up to 10 hours to complete, depending on the design. One of Rugmebuddy’s larger pieces (210cm x 160cm) took nearly 10 days to complete.
Spreading tuft love
Apart from processing rug orders, the couple has taken on the responsibility of educating the public about this old world craft, which has now attracted a young audience. On most weekends, they can be found holding three-hour workshop sessions at the Rugmebuddy studio.
“Workshops are the best time for us to educate the public. People see our Instagram posts, they react very well with it and say they want to see more. And it is in workshops that they get to actually see and feel the rugs.
“Through these workshops we can really communicate and engage with people. It’s not as simple as getting a tufting gun and to start shooting. We tell people about the different types of yarn, how to handle the tufting gun, and how to take care of the final product. It’s a very meticulous job and it requires a lot of patience,” says Shazwina.
Rusman fondly shares a time when a man drove all the way from Johor to Rugmebuddy’s studio for a tufting workshop.
“The only problem was, he hadn’t booked for the workshop. But he insisted on joining because that day was his only off day and he came all the way from Johor to join the workshop. That was really inspiring and it was also nice to know that our name and craft reached Johor,” recalls Rusman.
In the future, he adds the plan is to move these tufting workshops out of the studio and to conduct them at government schools to educate the younger generation about tufting and to teach them this skill.
The idea is not to let tufting be just a pandemic fad but a craft that continues to grow in Malaysia.
Rugmebuddy is also collaborating with local fashion brand Zuusaha, known for its fun and quirky designs, to make a tufted jacket. They also collaborated with Sabahan tattoo artist Alvin Tilok, who designed a dragon, tiger, cat and botanical themed tufted rugs based on Bornean tattoo designs. These rugs are on display at Papu, a pop-up art store at Publika in Kuala Lumpur.
“We want to make Rugmebuddy as local as we can. For now, we source our yarn from overseas but we do want to source our (raw) material from Malaysia to help the local economy grow. We also want to get local designs from each state done by artists and tattooists,” says Shazwina.
For those who are thinking about venturing into tufting, which Shazwina says is picking up in Malaysia, the most important step is to get proper advice and to do your research. You need to know everything there is to know about tufting. Trying it out on your own is also a crucial step, she notes.
“As a business, it may be slightly difficult and very competitive. We have a few tufted rug companies in Malaysia but the designs are very typical. So you need to stand out, you need to have designs which are different. But you can’t jump straight to that either. At Rugmebuddy, we were able to do it because we spent a year building our name.
“For us, standard and quality is paramount. If you are already spending money on this, why not do the best you can. That should be your goal. And reach out to other tufting companies and build connections with them. Building a community, I think, is important to ultimately grow the tufting craft in Malaysia,” concludes Shazwina.
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