I bought this efficient little gadget on eBay last week, and it arrived today.  I have been cutting the wool manually with a gauge I made myself from 2 rectangles of heavy mount card stuck both sides a narrower rectangle of corrugated cardboard to allow for the scissors to be inserted to cut the wool. 

Here is how I made it.

And here is the dingy little Patwin Rug Wool Cutter with some of the shorter lengths.

Unfortunately the cutter cuts to a slghtly different length so I can’t use it as is for the rug I have already started. But being inventive I hope I can pad the drum of the cutter so that it cuts to the same length as my gauge. 

The rug I am currently making is a latched rug hooked into a mesh background. The wool is a British wool and Alpaca mix, which I suspect will shed a lot, although the he British wool should make it reasonably hard wearing. I was seduced into buying the yarn as it was very attractive colours, an soft eggshell blue and a cream which will fit in with most colour schemes, and then a darker teal blue with a rust accent. The design is based on an African textile weave in simple graded stripes broken by a middle stripe with diamond and zip zag patterns as in my working graph.