Crochet rug recommended patterns

Hi there!
Thanks to all of you who weighed in on my slipper questions awhile back! I’ve now moved on to over-thinking about whether or not to try to make rag/yarn rugs for my house. I’d love to hear any thoughts on doing so, of what patterns you may have tried (successfully and craft fails) and anything else you may want to add to the conversation.
I appreciate it!

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My only attempt was a fail! Used t-shirt yarn and no pattern and tried to make an oval rug. It was very wonky and wouldn’t lay flat. So my advice is to use a pattern rather than trying to “wing it”.
:rofl:

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This is solid advice as you may know my “style” is totally “Wing it and hope” haha!

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Me too, giant tshirt yarn bowl project. Hours making all that “yarn” I eventually gave away :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:

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Hmmm ok so maybe no tshirt yarn. I have lots of old clothes that were going to be picked up by a recycling company but i took too long and they ended the contract with the town.

I also have a fabric collection that I read can be used, too (like “rug from a jelly roll” tutorials.) but i hoard that collection like a rabid treasure dragon so… :roll_eyes:

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I generally recycle my tee shirts into tee shirt yarn. You get a good chunk from the body of the shirt, but the armpits-to-neckline and sleeves aren’t much help, so they get trashed. I’ve made a few rugs, from patterns. They came out just fine, but my dog won’t leave them alone. She beats them up into a ball to lay on, every time she walks into the room. So I’ve given up on them for my house.

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I did make a rather beautiful one for @Noodle, but for that I sort of cheated. I bought some tube ribbed jersey to cut into tee shirt yarn, from Joann’s. Think of men’s tank-style undershirts. The fabric is created as a tube, so there is no side seams. That means your yarn has no seams! I mixed some black and some navy that I made, with some tee shirt yarn that I bought from an Etsy seller. I got a medium skein of white with a print of Union Jacks and other scribbles, and a large skein of dusty pink. She creates hers from leftover fabrics from commercial clothing, so it is rescuing the fabric from a landfill, but you’re buying yarn rather than recycling your own clothing. I will say however, that it was a dream to work with. Nice and smooth, and it created a nice weight rug, with good squish underfoot, and enough weight to stay in place.

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Here it is in Noodle’s old flat.

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When you look at the detail shot, you can see some medium blue and some purple that are slip stitched through the body of the rug. Those are actually from my tee shirts. I found the seams don’t bother me as much when slip stitching, but they get annoying on regular single and double crochet stitches.

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Annnd Tshirts are back on the list!
Haha I do love a good overthinking session!

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Here’s the thing, when you use your own shirts, you get small balls of yarn. They go far during the first few rounds of the rug, when you don’t have a ton of stitches per row. But… in the outer rows of the rug, when you have tons and tons of stitches, you’d only get a bit of a row out of each tee. And even when you have tees that are all the same color, they suddenly look different when you try to use them next to one another. You can see the color break between two shades of black.

So if you’re serious about using up the tee shirts, then I’d either buy some premade tee shirt yarn to use as the main body, and use your shirts as that kind of slip stitching detail, or make smaller objects, like baskets/bins to organize toys, pens, whatever you need to organize.

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Oh, oh wait! I almost forgot about @Abbeeroad’s rug! I made her one too, and I did use all actual tee shirts in it! BUT, I crocheted with cotton dish cloth yarn AROUND the tee shirt yarn…

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I started with looking at what colors of shirts I had, and bought some cotton yarn in the same palette, and then mixed it up. Like I’d use black yarn over the teal shirt, and then grey yarn over the black tee shirt, etc, mixing it up as I went, so I’d get interesting pairings of under color and over color. You can see a few points where the tee shirt seems pop out a little, but it just kind of gave it a more handmade feel. And in this instance, you get a lot more use out of homemade yarns, because you aren’t using up as much length as you would crocheting with them. You’re just going around them with the cotton. This made a thinner rug than Noodle’s but it was still soft and solid.

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This is the seller I got Noodle’s pattern from.

And this is the specific rug:

There’s also an adorable owl rug. And lots of smaller projects like bags and such.

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Beautiful rugs! Now I want to make some. Dang it!

here’s how I join tshirt yarn seamlessly.

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I’ve made a few crochet rugs!

This one is from fabric strips from old sheets:


I ripped the fabric into strips & joined them somehow (probably like this tutorial). Then I crocheted a circle, increasing by 12 each round that I increased (every other round I think? at least on the outer rounds). Now it’s under my cat’s water dish.

This one is from some jersey fabric cut into strips:


I cut the fabric into long strips & crocheted it using this pattern. Though it looks like I didn’t follow the pattern much & it got a little rippled in the middle. In outer rounds, I increased by 12 every other round.

The last one is made from some old jersey sheets cut into ~1" strips:


It was based on this pattern again. I followed it a little more closely this time, but mostly didn’t. It turned out ok - I did have to remember to lay it out flat every few rounds to make sure it was staying flat.

For a craft fail, here’s my attempt at a braided rag rug:


I braided the fabric strips & then sewed it together by hand, and it is not flat at all. I didn’t feel like taking it apart, so I gave it to my cat (it’s under her food dish). Then I used the leftover fabric to make the first crochet rug above.

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These comments are great, thanks for sharing!

So, let’s talk slippy-factor: what do you put under them to not be a cartoon character on a banana peel every time you walk in the door?

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Puffy paint is good, that’s recommended for slipper-socks. Bit pricey though. I bet plain old hot glue dots would do but then the rug is one sided only.
If you can get a remnant of carpet underpadding & cut it to size, that’s slip proof & adds a nice squoosh feeling. Those flimsy rolls that look like shelf liner are not so good in my experience.

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Depends. If your rug is pretty solid, and you want to put it on a bare floor like hardwood or tile, I’d put it on a rug pad like these ones. I have these around my house for all our small rugs. They really are non-slip, and they won’t damage your floor. Often the ones you pick up at stores like Target, will in fact ruin the finish on your hardwood. They are also good and thick, if you buy the pricier ones.

If your rug is more lacy, with bigger holes, it might not work for you because you’d see it.

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I have some yellow yarn in stash that I might use to try this pattern (ravelry link) when my human-cat goes to bed tonight. I’d love to order new yarn/stuff to make some rugs but my goal here is destash/declutter (and no/low spend). Not sure i have enough to make it, but that’s my style- try, frog, adjust.

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I tried the pattern above last night. I had to improvise due to lack of supply (trying to simply use up what’s here)

It’s a bit too small, I feel. I’m probably going to frog it. Either all the way or just rip back the picot and give up the sunburst feel and add in the only other of this yarn I have in a stripe- heather gray.
Not loving it so… we’ll see.


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Pretty! It doesn’t seem too small for the doorway, IMO.

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Chiming in to say sometimes schools have a clothing recycle program in the form of a big professional bin outside where you can just dump your stuff in. I don’t sew much so the clothes with unfixable holes go in there (stretchy fabric, jeans crotch holes). I think it gets recycled into insulation? The school gets money for every pound.

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