Care to cut a rug?

Cut up fabric to make a rug, that is.

Although I have beige carpet in my home, I’ve always liked the look of rugs and wanted to have one to better define my living room space while giving it a warm, vintage look and complimenting my dark wood furniture with brilliant colour. I’ve just found that making your own floor coverings is a great solution to this decorating dilemma. You can choose the size, style and colours of your rug, and no matter how crafty you are (or aren’t), you can get a great rug that won’t take up too much time or money.

After a lengthy search for the right fabric, I found it at an antique market during a recent weekend getaway. It is a blood red colour with soft gold flowers that are elegant rather than frou-frou — it even has a fringe. The damask is just the right size: two-and-a-half metres by one-and-a-half metres. It was practically ready-made; I only had to sew some inexpensive cotton to the back to give it more weight (though I now wish I’d chose something heavier, such as burlap or canvas) and added some black fringe to give the trim more heft and better coordinate the rug with my living room decor. I’m thinking of adding some black trim on top as well, and will keep an eye out when I’m at vintage stores for mismatched odds and ends of ribbon.

Of course, this isn’t the only way to make a rug. There are loads of instructions online, but I also find it fun to look for step-by-steps in old craft books. For example, I read up on other types of rugs in a book from the 1930s called The Complete Book of Modern Crafts. It includes quick and simple methods for making knitted rugs (cut material into narrow strips and knit them together using a plain or purling stitch); crocheted rugs (crochet strips of material with a large hook); scalloped rugs (finish pieces of cloth with a buttonhole stitch before superimposing them on each other and sewing them to a worn-out rug); hooked rugs (poke a hook through some burlap and wrap your yarn or material around it, draw it through to the upper surface of the burlap and form a loop); and braided rugs (cut fabric into one-inch or one-and-a-half-inch wide strips and sew them together as you work through the braiding).

If needlework just isn’t your thing, you can buy a rug secondhand. This is easier the more open-minded you are.

“A pastel chenille rug with raised flowers may be rubber-backed so that it can go in the bathroom,” writes Al Hoff in her book, Thrift Score, “but you can lay it anywhere.”

She adds that while you may find it hard to thrift a large rug that goes with your decor, you can buy a lot of smaller rugs that you can spread out and coordinate with specific pieces of furniture or areas of a room.

Whatever you choose, finding a unique rug that has aesthetic appeal doesn’t have to cost a lot. The damask fabric I bought for the living room was $40. I spent another $25 on trim and about $10 on fabric to sew on the back. I also have a new smaller rag rug in my bedroom that I got at a flea market for $20, and I’ve picked up other second-hand occasional rugs for about this price. You may not have to spend any money on fabric if you make a rug out of clothes you no longer wear. You could also get reasonably cheap material, or a ready-made rug, at a thrift store.

Whatever floor covering you choose, it’s sure to add just the right touch for your decor. Now that I’ve finally sewn up my rug, my living room looks a lot richer and homey. I feel like celebrating.

You can contact Jennifer O’Connor at thriftyflair@gmail.com or follow her on Facebook.