Crocheted Rag Rug

Sheets are a great value when it comes to material yard by yard. Especially when you buy them at a Thrift Store at 50% off. I got mine for a whopping 50 cents each! I wanted to make a rug for my bathroom and I had a few balls of fabric yarn but needed one more sheet to cut to make sure I had enough to finish the job. Of course when I found out there was a sale, I picked up a few more sheets. Single unmatched sheets at my favorite Thrift store are $1, so after spending $2 I went home with 4 sheets; a lot of fabric to reuse.

I am not at all an expert at crocheting, I only know a few stitches, so I am afraid you will not get a good tutorial here about crocheting rugs. I will tell you how I made it from the old sheets. I washed and dried them and folded them into quarters. 

Laying them onto my cutting mat I cut them with my rotary cutter at about 1/2 inch strips. Most people cut them wider, more about 1 inch. First I would cut as far as I could on my mat then go to the next row over. After I reached the edge on that side I would carefully pull the sheet over and position it to finish each cut. You can tear them instead of cutting if you prefer but they make fuzzy lint all over so I suggest tearing them outside. 

Sometimes I would miss a section and need to cut through with my scissors.  Then the sections of strips were wound into balls. I usually join the ends by sewing with my machine or by hand but this time I felt lazy and looked forward to just getting to the crocheting. I would need to knot my strips on the back of the rug. 

My finished rug needed to be about 20 inches by 38 inches oval. Using an H-8 size crochet hook and 1/2 inch strips of fabric yarn, each finished row is about 3/4 inch tall. So, doing the math I needed to chain stitch 17 inches and double crochet 14 rows to end up with my target size. Test your own stitches by making a square about 6 inches or larger to see what size rows yours are to determine your finished size. My finished rug is 39 inches by 20 1/2 inches, slightly larger than planned. Make sense? OK. 

After the chain stitch I then double crochet into each chain down one side. At the end I add an extra stitch in each loop end on each side making sure the rug will lay flat and not curl or be loose. As I go around the end each time I check repeatedly to make it is not cupping or becoming wavy. I really don't follow a pattern at all, I just add extra stitches to the ends when I feel it needs it. Again, a lot of rug making has taught me when and where to add these extra stitches.  

When I finish a row and change color or just run out of my fabric strip I tie a new strip on keeping the knot to the back. Here is what the back looks like. When I am finished I weave the loose ends into the stitches and they don't show. 

But truly, I wished later I would have taken the time to sew those ends together instead of tying them! 

Here it is finished, my joining seam looks a little messy but it usually relaxes a bit after some use. These rugs last years and years if you use sheets that are not to fragile from age. They wash very well too. 

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