Crocheted rag rug

When I was supposed to spring clean the living room I instead started to crochet a rag rug, which is a total opposite of cleaning because it's so messy. Crocheting itself is not that messy but since I did not have weft rags I had to make them and that is so dusty.

You remember the pile of T-shirts we found from A's closet that we placed in the rag pile? I cut out weft rags from those and also from some other shirts we had in the rag pile.

I cut a long strip from the shirts which was about 1,5 to 2 cm (0.6 in about) wide going round the shirt until I either hit a print (like in that shirt on the picture) or the arm pits. I wanted solid coloured weft rags. Each stripe I made is from a different T-shirt.

I used the biggest crocheting hook I have which is size 6,5 mm (here is a hook comparison chart, since US, England and Canada seem to use different size specification). A bigger one could have been even better. I made a nice lenght of starting chain and then crocheted the whole rug with double crochet (ok, I'm a bit baffled, the translation table I found says that in Britain the term double crochet is used and in US a term single crochet. How difficult is that! How about the rest of the English speaking world? Anyway here are pictures how to make it).

When the rug was done I popped it in the washing machine and washed all the dust away. The corners of the rug curled easily so while the rug was drying I tamed the corners down using some food containers and rocks.

Once the rug was dry, which took almost two days since the rug is so thick, I placed it in front of the terrace door. I put an anti-slip membrane under the rug since it would not stay put without it.

Here is by the way the rug we used to have there. In a way it was a good rug, it was made of coconut fibers I think and dirt did not show on it. But it was falling apart, the glue on the back side of the rug was crumbling away.

I know I will need to wash this new rug from time to time, but I like it a lot more than the old one. Maybe it is only because I made it myself or because it's more colourfull. I'm also real happy I got some use for most of the old T-shirts.

If you want to make a rag rug which is an excellent use for worn out clothing or any fabric, I really suggest making the weft rags on summer and OUTSIDE. The cutting created so much dust and mess. I cut the weft rags with scissors, since the fabric was tricot jersey knit, but when using regular linen you can rip the fabric into strips.