Making a rag rug

How I spent my Sunday afternoon...doing some of my favorite things; reading magazines and creating!

I have such a HUGE fabric stash, I decided to try my hand at turning some of my fabric into some rag rugs for our house.

I have found several methods to make them, but since I crochet, I decided to try that method first.

Using a "P" crochet hook for this project.The only stitches involved with this are chain and single crochet. I am not a great teacher, but here is my quick tutorial for you.

I pulled some random fabrics from my stash. No rhyme or reason, just pulled some that I though there was enough of to make enough strips to make it around the rug a couple to a few times.

I cut my strips at about 1.5 inches in width. I just used two fingers as a guide for the first few snips, then "eyeballed" the rest.

I tore complete yardage pieces into a pile of strips so they would all be ready to use.

This video was quite helpful. I also enjoyed her introduction.


I did not make mine the exact 27 chain stitches as in the video above, I don't remember how many I did, but it doesn't really matter. The size is all up to you.

The corners are not as complicated or tricky as I anticipated without having an exact pattern to follow. I found that if I needed to "stretch" to get to the next strip, it was time to do 2 single croc
het stitches to increase.

These are two rugs I made from vintage bed sheets.

 
***I love your comments! Thank you for letting me know you stopped by! Please know that I read each and every comment left, though I am not always able to respond to each one, I do when I am able.***

Making myself a list

checking it....oh so many times!

In order for me to keep myself on task, I MUST have a list. As hard as I have tried over the past many months, and just ignored what I know I needed to do.

I bought myself a steno book and am doing much, much better!

I will share my "method to my madness"...if there really even is one to speak of, once I we are moved and settled into the new house.


So much to do but so much happiness for us ahead.

Wool Dryer Balls

I have wanted to make some of these for quite a long time.

Again, Sandra beat me to it; even with a tutorial on her blog.

Last night, I pulled out the wool yarn and started creating.

Here are some before I felted them.

And here's the ones I have already felted.

I had a bunch of leftover wool yarn on hand, so I just made wool balls until I thought I was done, then I found enough more wool yarn to make probably 15-20 more!

Now, I tried something a little different than Sandra didn't do in her tutorial. For the center "core" I wound the yarn very tightly for the first 1/4 of the ball on some, others I didn't. I found that the ones with the tighter wound core were a bit heavier (and bouncier), so I think they may do better in the dryer. Also, I used panty hose, and instead of tying with string, I just knotted the hose very close to each ball as I put it inside the hose. After they were felted, I just cut the hose to get them out. You will likely find some of the wool balls stuck to the hose when you attempt to remove them. That is fine, just pry the hose off and it's ready to go.

Homemade laundry soap

I know that there are many, many recipes on the internet for homemade laundry soap.

Here in the Texas panhandle, though, I am not able to use homemade laundry soap. The water is awful and everything ends up gray after a few weeks of use. I DO NOT blame the laundry soap, I know for sure it is our water.

I have tried the powder (dry) one on a couple of occasions and liked it just fine.

Then last summer, once I moved into this little place, I tried the liquid(aka: gel) recipe used by Michelle Duggar. Her recipe is here. I really liked how far the liquid formula makes the ingredients last.

When I was home in Leesville, LA a couple of weeks ago, I was telling my oldest sister about it. She wasn't certain about the washing soda (NOT baking soda) so I told her I would send her photos. So instead, I am doing this post for her :-)

I often see comments that Zote works equally well, if you cannot find the Fels-Naptha.

I took these photos at W*lmart. All four locations here in Amarillo carry these items now. I guess there was finally enough requests for them. Hopefully all locations nationwide now carry them.

Some add O*yClean or other whiteners or boosters. I have never added them. One of my main reasons for using homemade laundry soap is to save money. By adding those extra items, it drives up the cost of ingredients.

If you plan to use the liquid recipe, if you cannot locate a 5gal. bucket for free at a food establishment, W*lmart has them (be sure to grab the lid) in the paint department for around $4.00.

For rinsing, I use *gulg* of vinegar in each rinse. How much is a glug, you ask? I would estimate about 1/3 cup or so. I love how the laundry feels and is soft using vinegar (and there is NO VINEGAR SMELL on the clothes at the end of the rinse/spin cycle). Either white or apple cider is fine.

 I plan to return to using the homemade laundry soap very soon.