Rag Rug Project

Well this project has been in the works for a little while now, it is taking me quite a long time as I am doing little bits to it here and there. But I thought I would post about my inspiration for making my rag rug and how far I have got so far. Later on I will post a tutorial about it =)

A while back we had a clear out of some old t-shirts and Pippa made some strips from them and crocheted together a phone holder. It was very nice and soft and I thought a lovely way of reusing/upcycling the old t-shirts, which got me thinking about other ways to use them.

I also saw a few things on pinterest, there are a number of different ways to make a T-shirt rag rug, the main ones are linked below:

You can make a long piece of fabric from lots of strips attached end to end, this can then be crocheted or stitched together in a circle usually:

using a strip and crocheting, then sewing image from: http://cuadadesign.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/plaited-rag-rug-tutorial.html

Another method uses strips of fabric which are tied through or looped through a backing fabric to provide a ruffled finish to the rug.

a very different finish image from: http://mollykaystoltz.com/t-shirt-shag-rug-tutorial/

I have decided to go for the second method because I think it will provide a much better feeling under my feet. I actually got the inspiration to start this because I found some hessian bags for sale in a local charity shop and decided they would make a good backing. In hindsight I should have either used half of the bag or got a plastic rug mesh backing to use with slightly larger holes… but oh well you live and learn.

I started off around the outside first and then started filling in the middle. In an ideal world I would just use fabric from old t-shirts and other suitable clothing, however it’s hard to find t-shirts that are in a wide variety of colours, I would mainly have had a yellow and blue rug with white edging… so instead I may have bought some fabric from fabricland in a wide variety of colours to make my rug look really cool.

Here is some of my fabric:

And it cut into strips:

The start of my rug with it’s white edge:

Further into the project, still a long way to go though:

and how it looks at the moment…. I’d say it might be about halfway finished…possibly