Making a Braided Rug....The Finishing Process

I finished braiding my rug at home. Just before braiding the final row of purple, I decided to "lay out" my rug on the bed...just to get an idea of how the finished rug would look. I LOVE IT! I can't wait to finish it!

Once the rug was braided, I had to felt it in preparation for the sewing step which we were taught in the Feb. 8 class. I ran it through the agitation cycle twice. The first time through, I had very little felting. The second time through, I got the expected amount of felting. After felting, I tugged a bit to straighten the braid and used the felting needle to push in any loose bits from where I'd joined fibers.

The first step in preparing to sew is to lay out the entire braid on the table. You then determine which side is the right side and try to lay all the braids flat. I think I preferred the definition of the colors that I got before felting over the felted results. The felting process blended the colors a bit and made them less distinct. However, the felting will definitely make the rug more durable. I think that with the next rug, I may not braid it as tightly...and then I should be able to see the braid more distinctly.


The next thing we did was learn how to sew the braids together to make the final rug. You insert the needle from the center of one braid, through the middle to the center of the braid next to it. I found that it was much easier to use the curved needle rather than the straight needle. I was sewing rather close together, so it will take me forever to sew the rug together. We've decided that I should sew it more in a "w" shape as the such tight sewing isn't really needed.

Since my braids are rather tight, I had a very long braid and as a result, I had a LOT of sewing to do! It seems like I barely made any progress before the class ended. I'm not sure how quickly I'll get the rug sewn together, but I'll definitely post a picture of the final result when it's done.