Spoonful of Imagination

Add it to a Family for Something Beautiful

  • Home
  • Our Family
    • Our Home
  • Courses
  • Shop
  • Contact

DIY Rug

March 22, 2013 By Erica Deuel 25 Comments


DIY rug

Have you ever had a project where once you were in the middle of it-the idea of it didn’t seem quite as grand?  You decide you will never do it again, but in a twisted way you are still glad you did it, and you might actually like the project!?  That was this DIY rug for me.

As we were clearing out and getting rid of stuff to put our house on the market (Our House Attack), I found all our old queen bed sheets.  They were stuffed in the back of our linen closet and have not been touched since we got our king bed last summer.  I put them in a huge pile and was getting ready to throw them out or donate them, when I had an idea.  That pile of sheets was a lot of neutral color fabric that had to be able to be used for something.

a craft for old sheets

I had been wanting a new rug for our sitting room, and decided that a circle rug would look best.  As I priced them out, I saw that they could be pricey, so once I saw that pile of fabric, I knew I needed to try to make a rug.

I started by folding each one of my sheets over, so when I cut my 3″ wide strips, I was saving time by cutting through four layers of fabric at once.

folded sheets

cutting strips of fabric

I literally cut 3″ wide strips out of all of the flat-bed sheets.  The length doesn’t really matter when you are cutting the fabric, but I would go back later and cut them to be about 3′ long.  You ultimately want 3″ x 3′ long strips of fabric to braid.  Much longer than that gets too hard to maneuver.

strips of fabric cut

After all your fabric is cut, you are ready to start braiding.  Braid three pieces of fabric together, just like you would braid anything else.  I used a pin to hold my ends together on a basket to make it easier to braid.

braiding a rug

braided rug

When one of my small strips ran out while braiding, I simply hot glued another strip (of a different fabric pattern) to it and kept braiding.  Once you have a long strand of braided fabric, you can start to curl it to form the rug.  I know most tutorials say to hand stitch the braids together.  I didn’t want to spend that amount of time on this project.  I pulled out my hot glue gun, and it did an amazing job of bonding the braids together.  I simply added some glue and then stuck my braid to it as it curled around.

hot glueing a rug

hot glueing a rug together

Once I ran out of braid, I went back and braided some more strips till I had a long braid once again.  Next, I simply took both ends and hot glued the different strands together.

attaching fabric to braid longer

attaching fabric to braid

attaching more braid strands

I feel like there is so much cushion for error and imperfections with this project.  The ends are barely noticeable by being hot glued straight together like that as you can see in the picture below.

attaching more braids

Although it is slightly noticeable in the picture because of my arrow pointing to it, standing on my rug now, I don’t see any of them.  There was nothing hard or precise about this project.  It was literally just braiding and gluing as I have shown.  The part of this project that made me say I would NEVER do it again is how much time it took.  Granted it didn’t require any thinking, so I did it in front of the TV, but now I have a new understanding of why rugs cost so much.

I kept going with the braiding and gluing steps until my rug grew and grew.

rug growing 1

braided rug tutorial

Finally, I ran out of strips of fabric.  The rug didn’t end up being as big as I would have liked, and it might have a slight ripple speed bump in it.  Overall, I really like it!

I wanted to try to help smooth it out and reinforce my hot glue by adding a back fabric to the rug.  I used another big sheet to cut out a circle of my rug that I then sprayed glued onto the rug.  I still want to go back and use a stronger cement type glue to seal the edge of the under layer fabric to the rug more securely.

back of a rug

added rug support

We have been walking on it for over two weeks now, and it is holding up great!  My dogs love to curl up on it and I think it looks so good in the little sitting area in our kitchen.

sitting area

I think the circle shape helps close the spot in better than the long rectangle shape rug did.  What do you think?  Do you have a circle rug or obsession with circles?  After making my circle mirrors and working on this circle rug, I am obsessing over circles.

the difference in a rug

Thank you so much for stopping by today!

**Congratulations to Candice H. for winning my Easter Basket worth of handmade goodies!  I will be in touch!

signature


Share this:

  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • YouTube
YouTube-Channel
Erica Deuel

Subscribe for Weekly Updates!




Most Popular Posts

DIY {easy} Burlap Wreath
Painting Flower Pot Party Tips
DIY Paper Butterflies- Spring decor for cheap
Chiffon Flower Tutorial
DIY Outdoor Table
DIY Outdoor Checker Board
For the Love of Color!
School Desk Makeover
Cheap lamp to Industrial Beauty
To Clean or Not to Clean?

Categories

  • All About the Kids
  • art journal
  • Blogging
  • Christmas
  • Craft Projects
  • Dancing Zebras
  • DIY
  • Eddy's postcards
  • Embroidery Journal
  • Family
  • Featured
  • Fireside Chat
  • Foster Care
  • Giveaways
  • Guest Posts
  • Home
  • Homeschooling
  • Kid Activities
  • Kid Craft
  • My Heart
  • Our Outings
  • Project Spotlight
  • Send Out Love
  • Shop
  • Sponsored Posts
  • Spoonful Lab
  • Spoonful Tribe
  • Tips + Tricks
  • Traveling
  • Uncategorized
  • Vlog

Favorite Categories

Subscribe for Weekly Updates!

Favorite Categories

© 2023 Spoonful of Imagination, Inc.