Needles, Hooks & Books: Braided Towel Rug

Merry Christmas!

For Christmas this year, I wanted to make my sister something. I had an idea for last year, bought the items to make it and then ran out of time. This year, I uncovered the items I bought and convinced myself that I had enough time to make it and just do it, no more excuses.

I got this idea from a blog called Sisters of the Wild West, with a project called Braided Towel Rug. Pretty much the project is a braided rug made with towels. So, I bought 3 different colored towels, a green, a beige and a yellow towel. I washed them and then cut them into strips.

This sounds easier than it was. This made a complete mess. I will soon show you...

Cutting the towels require you to trim off the seamed edges. Then cut the towel into about 1.5" strips. Well, let's just say that this project is very forgiving and you can be 1/2" to 1.5" and still be okay with it.

Cut into strips, each towel. Depending on how big you want this rug, depends on how many strips you will use.

Each towel yielded about 19 strips. Because the towels are terry cloth, the loops in the towel get trimmed and make a complete mess. Utterly miserable!!

This was generated by a shake down of each strip to separate the cutting colors after cutting into strips. My cutting mat was not too pleased with the after-results either:

I did use a rotary-cutter. The rotary cutter left behind all of this in the cutting mat. I had to take my fingernail and scrape the mat. Not too much fun, but it was a quick task.

First, you take one strip of each color and sew them together. Next, start braiding the three strands.

When you come to the end of the strands, you then sew the next strand onto the end of the braided respective color. You do this for several strips until you have an extremely long braid. You then start your rug forming. To form the rug you take the initial sewed strips (the beginning) and start forming a circle in itself:

In order for you to keep everything together, you will need a needle and button thread. Button thread is thicker and will hold-up to tough wear-and-tear. So, sew the inner braid to the outer braid of the inner circle.

I made a long braid and then started the rug. When I got to the end of the braid, I then sewed on more strips and braided. Continue in this fashion until your rug is the diameter you would like it.

I wanted to make a bath mat sized rug. I only used about a quarter of the rug strips. It took me about 2 hours to wash and cut the towel strips. Then another 4 hours to braid and sew the rug in a circle. No joke, it took awhile. Plan for this to be a half day to full day project.