Another Project

The floor in my kitchen is linoleum.

 It's old linoleum.

33 year old linoleum.

It's scratched. It's faded in spots. It has small holes in it. It's also 1970's brown. Sam and I already decided that if we were to replace the linoleum we would gut and redo the whole kitchen as well. Since that would probably cost more than what Sam makes in a year, it will wait.

Samantha has been doing a latch hook project in recent weeks. I was helping her with it when I had an idea. I could make a rug for the kitchen for waaayyy less than a kitchen do-over would cost. A quick trip to the craft store and I came home with a 36" by 72" piece of plain rug hooking material. I had some left over fleece from making bathrobes in brown, yellow, and two shades of pink.

I cut the fleece into strips 4" long by 3/4" wide. Using a latch hook, I simply hooked the strips of fleece into the rug material, changing colors frequently, but having no pattern. I quickly learned that 1) 3/4" is too wide and 2) I need to be aware of the stretchy grain in fleece. The stretch needs to be along the short side of the strip not the long side, otherwise the strip pulls too much when you loop it through the rug. The strips need to be 1/2" wide or less and 1/8" is too small. I didn't worry too much about being exact and I think it adds to the "scrappy" look of the rug.

After a few rows, I started to experiment and figured out that I could skip every other square and every other row. This made it easier to loop the fabric through the holes and didn't effect the "fluffiness" of the rug.

Here is a picture of the rug so far. You can see the rug "fabric", the hook, and the strips of fleece. I think this might work with flannel fabric too, but that's another project... I still have a looong way to go, but it makes for a good evening or rainy-day project.