Jersey Rug: Part 1

So I was searching around on Pinterest one day right after finding out that I was pregnant and found this project: http://xoelle.com/2009/05/t-shirt-latch-hook-rug-tutorial/

Me, being the crafty person I am, thought I can totally do that and I doubt it will take as long as the other person said it took. And, I just happened to have a set of jersey sheets that somehow shrunk at our last duty station so they were just begging to be cut up and walked on. J

Well, I’m going to warn you that I was wrong about it taking less time than the other person. This is a very tedious project and contains many tedious steps so it will take you a good amount of time, but it turns out being a very cute rug when you are done with it and it is well worth the time and energy put into it when you see how cute and plushy it is.

We plan on using our rug in the baby’s room when he finally graces us with his presence.

Here is how I went through this project (NOTE: many of my steps will be the same as the other link so feel free to use either of our pages for the steps. I forgot to take pictures when I first started the project so many things may be pictures that I found online.)

I apologize in advance for the lengthiness of this blog and the fact that the project is not completed!

Jersey Knit Rug

First, you will need to gather all of your materials for the rug. If you are like me, this could take a while, but that is because finding jersey knit in the country I currently live in is a little tough. Luckily for me, I had a trip planned to the States and an awesome mother who helped me cut a ton of the fabric. (Yes, I could have bought sheet sets in the colors that I wanted, but I knew that if I could catch the jersey knit on sale, it would be cheaper and easier for me to get some of it. I will say it was easier to cut the jersey knit fabric from the craft store since I did not have to worry about cutting off the outside seems first, but believe me old jersey sheets or even t-shirts would work great for this project.)

The materials you will need are:

*Jersey Knit fabric cut into 4 inch long by 1 inch wide strips (You can purchase jersey knit by the yard at most craft stores or you can use a set of jersey sheets. I found that the jersey knit material from the craft store is a little thicker than the jersey knit sheets, but I used both in my project. The amount of fabric you need is dependent on how big you plan on making your rug. I will be using no more than 3 yards of any of the colors I have.)
*A rotary cutter and mat to cut your strips (Or scissors or dress-making sheers if that is what you have)
*Latch hook canvas (I used the 36” by 60” 3.75 mesh. It can be found at any craft store or online from any craft store)
*A latch hook tool (These can also be found at any craft store and come in a different styles. Find one that feels comfortable in your hand as you will be using it a lot to get all those strips put into the rug.)
*Rug Binding (I found there are a few options for this online and at craft stores and I opted to use an iron on rug binding. I will review this part of the project on another blog, once we get through the rug making process and once I actually get to that step.)

Now, let’s start putting your rug together:

1. First things first, make sure your material is cut into 4 inch long by 1 inch wide strips. You can either do this all in bulk or you can do this a little at a time and work on the rug as you get the strips done. I cut my strips all at once and bagged them into bags of 100 to keep them organized.

2. Now, you need to plan. There are many options to this rug (different colors, patterns, etc.) so you will need to plan how big you want this rug to be and also how you want to put the strips into the rug. I decided that I wanted to make this rug 11 squares by 12 squares on the latch hook canvas. Once I started hooking the material in, I decided that my pattern would be 1 square left blank between the white and aqua color strips, 1 square left blank between the aqua and blue color strips, and 2 squares left blank between the blue and white color strips that I was using. (The reason for me leaving 2 squares between the blue and white color strips that I was using was for the sheer fact that the material is thicker and thus harder to tie in a knot when it is too close to the other fabric). I also decided to leave one strip open between each row of latch hooking that I did.
**NOTE: This step may take a little hands-on planning on your part. I originally thought I would do every other square on the canvas with material, but once I started working with the material, I learned that was going to be a little too difficult.**
Here is a picture of the back of the rug so you can see a little of what I am talking about regarding the pattern:

3. Leave a good amount of space around where you are latch hooking so that you do not have to use masking tape to tape off the edges. Of course you can use the masking tape like the other blogger did, but I didn’t have any lying around and I was too lazy to go to the store to get some.

Now, you will start the actual latch hooking. If you are lucky, you will be able to follow the normal directions for latch hooking, but my fabric was too thick so I was only able to do some of it with the tool and then had to do the rest by hand.
**Here are the normal directions for latch hooking (and they can also be found on the other blog that I had posted at the beginning of the post.) First, you will need to pull the latch hook tool through a strand of the canvas. Next, you will need to place the material (as close to the middle of the material as you can get) into the latch hook tool. From here, pull the latch hook tool down through the canvas, making sure that you take the bottom of the strip of material with it, but also making sure to leave about half of the strip of material sticking out from the canvas (The other blog has great pictures showing you exactly how to do all this. Sorry, I am really not that great at remembering to take pictures.) Slide the tool up the remaining ends of the strip of material and catch them, and then pull them through the loop made by the strip of material below the canvas. **

If your material is too thick like mine, you will find that it is too difficult to do the last two or three steps, which begin with sliding the tool up the remaining ends of the strip. I did this step by hand and wound up just grabbing the loop that is made by the strip of material and pulling the other ends of the material through the loop. It may be a little more work with your hands, but I don’t think it takes much extra time.

**NOTE: This step may take a little practice so if you do not get it right on your first try, don’t give up. It will come to you with time. J**

4. Continue step 3 until your rug is the size that you want it to be. This will be all you need to do to make the actual rug. Once this step is complete, you will need to do the binding on the rug.

Here is a picture of my rug with all the work that I have finished on it now. Once I get the rug finished and start binding the rug, I will post another blog post to show you those steps as well.