2 Rag Rugs

As I was cleaning out my closet in preparation to come to South Africa,

I came across a bunch of old twist skirts and sundresses.

Most of them were torn or stained (because I painted in them).

I really didn't want to throw them away because I thought something could be done with them.

Fabric is becoming more and more expensive.

I knew I couldn't hold onto anything unnecessary to take with me.

What to do?

There's an old saying that goes-

"When life gives you scraps make quilts".

I can't make a quilt with it, but how about a rug?

Maybe I should make a rag rug.

My mother has made a number of rag rugs, so I thought I would give it a try.

First step was to cut all of the skirts and dresses into 1 1/2 inch long pieces.

I actually found that I could start at the bottom of the skirt 

and get to the top by cutting one very long strip.

Kind of like a swirl all the way around the piece.

After all of the strips were cut, I rolled them into balls (like a skein of yarn).

Then I looked at the colors.

Appearantly I wear the colors I like and use in my house.

I was hoping to have alot of red and yellow in my kitchen in South Africa.

At first I was not sure what shape to make.

Maybe I should stitch a square of a circle?

Anyway, the project started out with the small rusty red circle

and grew into this flower.

As you can see in the above picture,

I did several rows in a circle.

Then I chain stitched up and put several stitches in one hole in order 

to achieve the look of flower petals.

After using all of the rusty red and ruby red that I had,

I looked on my pile of rags for more possibilities.

I decided to make leaves for my flower.

When that was finished I thought it needed to be a little bigger.

So, I  crocheted in between the leaves to make it circular.

Tips for doing this project:

- use the largest crochet needle you can buy

- Always edge the details in your rug with darker colors,

especially around the outer edge

(this will help it to continue to look nice after future wear and tear,

it also helps to bring out the colors in your rug)

Well, here is the finished rag rug.

It made it to my kitchen in South Africa!

My kitchen is very narrow,

so it fits in perfectly.

I also love the colors!

This is one of my favorite projects that I have do so far.

It was so much fun making on before I came here.

Anticipating where I might live and what I might put in my

house made it even more rewarding when I was finally able to unpack my shipping crates 

and move into my own house.

Just last week, I realized that I could do something about those muddy foot prints that I always seem to have on the floor from going in and out to the garden.

I went through some of my supplies and decided to make a second rug.

This time I used yarn.  

I think it is called ribbon yarn (burgundy and blue) and flag yarn (yellow).

For this rug, I used a medium sized crochet hook.

I was not sure which size to use, so I just crochet a few rows

in a few differant sized until I found the one I liked.

This time, I only needed a small mat for infront of my veranda door.

I was limited in my supply too, so I decided to just do a half flower,

following the same idea as before.

This is what it looked like when I finished it.

I am a bit of a perfectionist, 

but I was also too far along to make myself take it all out and start again.

What was I going to do about the bumps in the rug?

I knew I would trip over it every time if I didn't do anything about it.

Then I thought,

the yarn is acrylic, so it should shrink a little when heated.

I got out my trusty heat gun!

The heat gun allowed me to give concentrated heat just where I needed it to be.

I also found that the yellow flag yarn shrunk but the other didn't.

While I was heating it, I thanked God for the little ways He blesses us in life.

I didn't plan to have to do this step,

but He allowed that the yarn I needed to heat was the one that would shrink.

Thank you, Lord!

This is my rug before being heated.

This is the rug after being heated.

I know, isn't it great!

Hopefully, this has inspired you to use some 

of those rags or scraps that are just lying around.

"When life gives you RAGS,

make RUGS!"

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Homespun Happenings