While searching for a rug for Adele’s room, I decided that it needed to be pretty colorful in order to go with her quite colorful quilt (she designed it and picked all the colors). Here is my favorite from FLOR:

But, it was going to still cost a few hundred dollars, and we still haven’t rented our house in Mystic, so I couldn’t pull the trigger just yet.

The rugs I was looking at were all multicolored and I even liked the look of some rag rugs. Then, I thought about the rag rug I had started making, but abandoned because the colors really wouldn’t work anywhere in our house. Am I the only one who had an embarrassing amount of faded t-shirts and stretched out tank tops from lazy nursing? Don’t throw that stuff away!!! Anyway, the rug I had already started had a lot of pinks and reds in it, but also a lot of blues that would not work. So, I started unbraiding all those miles of fabric . . .

This is the braided section that I had already sewed together. I didn’t bother unsewing or unbraiding this section because it didn’t have any of the colors that I wanted to use.

After a LOT of unbraiding and a lot of rolling, we were left with these lovelies!

Here’s my lovely assistant and also my project photographer!

And, these will be saved for a future project.

So, I rebraided using Adele’s quilt colors and I added in a few long scraps of quilting fabric (not knit like the rest of the fabric I had originally used). I really like the look of mostly solid knit with a bit of pattern woven in. Plus it helps me fill in some colors that I didn’t have in the knit that are in the quilt.

A few progress shots:

Here we are so far. It’s a pretty slow process. I can get a couple of rings sewn down before my fingers start to hurt and I quit for the day.

It’ll be bigger than this, but here’s what we have cut and braided so far.

P.S. Here’s a pic of Adele’s quilt for reference =)

 

EDITED TO ADD: Here’s a progress shot from Dec 5, with the quilt in the same shot to give a sense of the scale. I LOVE how it’s turning out. It’s just crazy enough to go with the quilt, right? And while it is using some quilting fabric (that isn’t cheap but at least I already had it), it’s mostly using knit fabrics that would have been thrown away!

If anyone else is trying this, I caution you to make sure to make the braided fabric LOOSE as you go around the corners or else it will pucker up, i.e. won’t lie flat. I have a little of that in the middle, but I’ve learned my lesson now. I’m hoping that it will relax as it gets stepped on. I may also try using the steam iron to block it flat.

another progress shot:

 

EDITED TO ADD: Here’s a progress shot from Dec 9, with a few more rings around. I tell you what, once the rug starts to get a little bit big, it takes a whoooooole lot longer to go one time around! I know that should have been obvious, but it’s not quite as motivating when you work for a few hours just to get one measly little ring around the rug =) And, I had to rip out about half of it because I was working on my lap (big mistake!) and when I checked my progress by laying it out on the floor I found it was shaped like a bowl! Argh! But, now I have learned my lesson and I am working on the little wooden table, while sitting on my exercise ball. I figure it’s a good position (similar to a supported squat) for a pregnant lady to be spending a lot of time in. The more time I spend with the rug, the more I like it. It’s a bit like an “I Spy” quilt because there is a lot to notice if you look closely. I think it’s going to be just perfect for Adele’s room – I’m hoping to finish before Christmas!

EDITED TO ADD: Here’s a progress shot from Dec 13, with even more progress! This is a really FUN project, but I am hoping to finish in the next few days =) I am considering ripping the seams of the very middle (where I started) and taking out one section to make the center of the rug lay down a little flatter. This has certainly been a recurring issue – I think because the knit material is stretchy, so it’s not as stable as a braided rug would be that was totally made from woven (quilting cotton) fabric. That said, I still love it! I just love to stand over it and kind of squint my eyes to see what is noticeable – the lights, the darks, the contrast, the patterns that peek out . . .

 

EDITED TO ADD: Here’s a progress shot from Dec 21! We are almost done. I laid the rug down in Adele’s room and I think it would be best if it was just 5 or so more rounds bigger. I have, since the last photo, completely redone the middle purple and yellow portions. They were bumping up in the middle, so I cut out some excess and resewed the rounds. It’s MUCH flatter now, but there are still some sections that are a bit bumpy for my taste – however they flatten out easily with just a bit of easing/stretching. Maybe we will cross the finish line by Christmas????