Making rag rugs on the road again

Another day, another rag rug, or so the saying goes! Just another quick, small project on the road to replace an older green-and-yellow rug that has seen better days. The rug needs to fit in an odd section of the van…a T-shaped section of the floor leading from “the entrance hall” to the “hallway”. It is only about 30x45cm.

Making the rag rug

I started by cutting out a capital D-shaped piece of rug base. I got the template by folding the old rug in half as it is about the right size. After I have the base shape, I crocheted single-stitch into the hemline, basically creating a crochet version of the overlock stitch. This should stop the base from unravelling, peeling apart and shedding my fabric pieces in the future. I went very deeply into the base with my crochet, as this rug is going in an extremely high traffic area.

The material I am using for a base is a mystery, I found it in a bag next to a skip!

The fabrics I am using for the rugging itself are the usual blend of odd fabrics, too old to donate, too good to bin. They vary from red velour tracksuit bottoms, different jeans that have lost their crotch or the leg parts of cut offs I have made, that pre-cut fabric wool kindly given to me because the benefactor did not know what to do with it (yes please!) underpants, laddered tights, ripped tshirts, stained aprons…

Like the last rugging project, it is a small rug, and this is a fast stitch so I am knocking this up fairly quickly (I would estimate it will take a few hours a day, for about a fortnight).

It is going fairly well. The colours are not necessarily my first choice (gotta work with the rags I have first) but overall, pretty happy with this simple horizontal line pattern.