Denim Rug Project Completed

Finished rug.

I know I had said this blog post would be online yesterday.  However, the weather was not cooperating.  As usual, I was working up until the last minute.  The rug was not finished until yesterday.  After lunch I started working on the blog post.  I had most of it written when a thunderstorm blew up.  One minute the sun was out.  The next minute it was pouring rain with thunder and lightening.  I had to shut down the computer.  The storm passed and I started working on the blog post again.   The thunder and lightening started up again.  I turned off the computer.  The storm passed.  I turned on the computer and started back to work; another storm.  When the third storm came through I decided to take it as a sign that I was not going to get the blog post up until the next day.  I started again this morning in order to avoid the storms forecast for the afternoon.  The paragraph below is where the post began yesterday.

Raw edges frayed and left a lot of lint.

Folded strips to be sewn on the open edge.

I am excited to be blogging that my denim rug is completed!  It was months in the making.  I worked really hard this weekend in order to finish it before this post.  The photo of the rug is not where it will be used, but in the best place for me to get a good picture of it.

To recap the project, I had seen a denim rug in a magazine.  The magazine had given minimal instructions on how to make the rug.  Basically it was made like a latch hook rug.  The picture of the rug was not a close up.  It was part of a photo of a room.  Once I started on the rug, I discovered that the denim unraveled and left threads everywhere.  I decided that I would try to make the rug in a different manner so that the raw edges were enclosed.  I began looking at different types of rugs online.  Many people have made them, but few gave much information on how they made the rug.  I experimented with couple of options, but my efforts were hampered by my already having cut the strips for the rug to a certain width.  The strips were too wide to work well with crocheting a rug.  I decided to weave it.  I made a primitive loom and made the rug.  It took months, although some of that was due to my traveling.  I did not have as much time as I would have liked to work on the rug.

Strips rolled into 8 foot rolls.

How I made the loom from dowels, clamps and rubber bands.

Last week I said that I would post what I learned about making a denim rug so that all the information would finally end up on one page rather than scattered across numerous posts.  If you are considering making a denim rug you might want to consider whether it will be worth the effort and expense.

I had a number of pair of old jeans that were ready to be donated.  I also asked my friends if they had any jeans they were ready to part with.  I did buy a few pair, but not many.  The jeans were in many different shades of blue.  I thought that using multiple colors would be an interesting experiment.  You could not tell in advance exactly what the rug would look like.

I began with cutting up old denim jeans into two inch wide strips.  I lost count, but I know that it was twelve or more pairs of jeans.  The strips were all different lengths, so they were sewn together to make eight foot (2.44 meters) long strips.  The seams were pressed open.

Final strip was pinned before being taken off the loom.

I chose eight foot lengths because I did not know how much length would be taken up by going over and under each strip.  It actually did not take up as much length as I thought it would.  The finished rug ended up being five feet eight inches (1.75 meters).  I had about two feet (0.61 meter) of strip left on each roll.  The strips were made up of a number of different colors of denim.  I tried to make some strips in graduated colors from light to dark and some strips with light and dark in the middle and the medium colors on the ends.   By mixing up the colors I hoped that I would not get too many of one color clumped in one spot.  There are a few areas on the rug that have too much of the same color in one area, but that is normal when you are working with random colors.  You never know what patterns will emerge from chaos.  (Sorry, I had better not get started on chaos theory.)

After being removed from the loom.

 I started out by making the strips nine feet, but decided that was going to be too long.  I did not go back and cut down the strips that were too long, which caused me some problems later.  Make sure your strips are all the same length.  The longer rolls stood taller on the loom than the others and tended to want to fall over on their sides.

I made the cross pieces several inches longer than they needed to be because I was not sure how much of the length would be taken up.  All of the strips were made the same length.  Not only was I using material while weaving the strips, I also had to account for areas that were bulky where the lengthwise strips were joined together.  It was surprising at how much difference there could be between strips.  Sometimes it would be three inches longer and sometimes five inches longer. 

Bottom edged needed to be straightened.

The raw edges of the strips raveled and left blue threads and blue lint everywhere.  My workroom and my clothes were covered in lint.  To keep down the lint and threads I folded the strips in half and ironed them so that I would have a center line.  Both raw edges were folded in the center line, then folded in half so that there were finished edges on the outside.  The open edge was sewn closed  At first I was pinning the strips, but later realized that was not really necessary.

Each strip was 1/2 an inch (1.27 cm) wide and eight feet (2.44 meters long).  I made all the strips for the length and crosswise before I started weaving.  Each of the long strips was rolled up into a roll and tied with string to keep in from unraveling. 

I made a loom using three 3/4-inch (1.90 cm) dowels, four rubber bands, two small clamps, and dozens of long straight pens.   I slipped one of the dowels through the center of each roll of strips.  The rolls were set on top of the two other dowels and rubber bands were used to keep tension on the upper dowel.  I also used a clamp on each end to keep the rolls of strips tightly against each other.  A picture is worth a thousand words on this.  (Hopefully, you will be able to see what I am talking about rather than going into a long explanation.)  A straight pin was sunk into each roll.  This helped keep the rolls from unspooling too quickly.  There might have been easier ways to make a loom, but this method only cost $3.89 for the dowels.  I already had rubber bands and clamps.

Once the loom was set up, I sewed on the first cross piece.  It had to be hand stitched to each of the long pieces.  There may have been a way to machine stitch it, but given my work area, I could not configure the loom to set up to the sewing machine.  The rest of the cross pieces were only hand stitched on each end.  The hand stitching was just to hold the pieces in place until everything had been woven.  I just did a basic over and under weave.  Once the weaving was finished it was machine stitched all the way around.

Every row had to be tightened down to the one before it.  Since my loom did not have a shuttle, I used a crochet hook to grab each section of the fabric and pull it snugly to the strip before it. Snug is a relative term.  You want it as close to the previous piece as possible without pulling so hard that you deform the shape of the strip.

I wove until I had used up all the strips that could be used without bunching up one color at the end.  Since I was working with a lot of donated material I had to work with what colors were available.  I was truly ready for this project to come to an end by this time.  If I had equal amount of all colors, I could have made the rug another foot longer.

When I was ready to take the rug off the loom, I used straight pins to hold the last row together.  I did not want to cut the remaining strip material until after I had taken the piece off the loom in case it needed some adjustment somewhere.  Something might have been pulled too tight or left too loose and needed tightening up.   There were a couple of places on the first row that had pulled up a bit and needed a little adjustment, but I did not have to move any of the pins to release more of the strips.  Still it was better to be safe than sorry.  Once I had the rug adjusted, I basted the last row, removed the straight pins, and took the rug to the sewing machine.  I sewed all the way around the entire rug to make sure that the ends were all sewn securely.

There was a lot of hand sewing to attach all then ends of the cross pieces.  I was sewing through eight layers of denim.  I used finger covers to help reduce the pressure on my fingers.  They worked well when I was moving the straight pins around to release the tension on the strips on the loom..  They did not work well for putting the straight pins back.  The ends of the pins poked holes in the rubber.  By the end, I was using my leather thumb thimble with a plastic thumb thimble inserted inside for further protection.  You will need these to protect your fingers from pressure damage.

One final thing:  I had to clean my sewing machine twice during the project.  The lint build up was worse than on any project I have ever worked on.  Now that the project is over I will give the machine a good cleaning and oiling.  I have an old machine and I do the maintenance on it myself. 

That is the end of this project.  Next blog post I will be writing about my next project.  Check back next Monday afternoon.

Close to Completing the Denim Rug

Today is just a quick update on the denim rug project.  I have been weaving a lot since my last blot post.  I think I have about a foot left to go.   I have several colors of denim in this project and I am soon going to run out of most colors except for the darkest indigo.  When I reach a point where all I have left are the darkest strips, I will stop.  I don't want to cut up any more jeans.  The rug is long enough that I don't want to add too much more.

I don't have any new pictures.  The rug is very heavy and I had to use a large plastic container to support the it.  As the rug lengthened, I had to keep folding it up on top of the container.  You can't see how long the rug is.  I can't pull the rug out because it will change the tension on the strips.  It would be a lot of work to get things back in place if I move them.  Just imagine the picture above about three feet longer, and you will get an idea of how long the rug is right now.

I think that by next week I will be finished with the weaving.  I will be blogging about my method of removing the rug from the loom.  Also, I will blog about what worked and what did not work well on this project, so readers will have the best practices all in one  post.

I probably won't be able to get the post up until late Sunday afternoon.  Things have changed on my schedule, so Sunday mornings are not available any more.