Make a Charming Rug from Fabric Scraps
A Beautiful Accent for Your Home!
Is your scrap bag overflowing? If so, you can whittle it down to size by making a beautiful fabric rug. This one has all the charm of a braided rug but is easier to construct. Plus, your style of scraps will make it uniquely yours.
Fabric strips are wrapped around cotton rope, coiled, and stitched together with a wide zigzag stitch. The result is a charming rug you can display just about anywhere.
You’ll need a lot of fabric strips that are 1″ to 2″ wide and a good amount of thread. The rope can be found at a hardware store. Make your rug as large or small as you want, following the designers suggestions for keeping it flat while stitching.
While it should come out of the washing machine looking great, the designer, Jodie of Ric Rac, says of hers:
“… it is too big to go in my washing machine so I expect I will treat it like a regular rug. I will give it a bashing every now and again and then use a carpet shampoo when it is grotty (or just turn it over to the clean side at first).”
Jodie started with 8mm (about 3/8″) cotton rope and switched to 7mm (about 1/4″) when the larger size ran out. She discovered that the smaller rope worked better with her machine. You’ll find several sizes to choose from here and here. Convert mm to inches at the top of the page here.
I love the tutorials. Quick and easy projects
Why not take the larger rugs to the laundromat where there are machines to handle large items….
try spraying it with a fabric protector like scotch guard before use, and then it would make it easier to keep clean.
I’ve ordered coding to make a rug or trivets, etc, but can’t imagine wrapping miles of cord with fabric then having thread poking out from fraying. I’m going to encase the cord in fabric using a zipper foot like making cording for a pillow edge. Trim the seam then start to sew. There is also a tutorial that shows how to start the center very easily.