Turn your old denim into a stunning rug
A striking chevron design in denim and white completes a casual, contemporary living room. Snip your jeans into strips and a few white shirts too, then use a latch hook and a panel of rug canvas (try Spotlight)
to hook the strips into the tufted design. Leave your shoes at the door, this feels amazing underfoot!
Gather your supplies:
94 x 70cm 3 holes per inch mesh rug canvas (ideally 2 sides should be selvages)
Tape measure
Marker
Variety of denim jeans, various shades
White shirts
Fabric scissors
Sewing machine and general sewing supplies
Denim-coloured thread
Latch hook
Here’s how:
STEP 1
Measure and mark out a 94 x 70cm rectangle on rug canvas. Edges that aren’t selvages will need securing with hems using seams of jeans. To do this, pick 3 pairs of jeans similar in colour. Turn jeans inside out and cut seams off outside legs 3cm away from seam itself. Cut any bulk off top or bottom of strip.
STEP 2
To hem, sandwich canvas edge inside seam and pin. Machine stitch along seam using zigzag stitch. Repeat to hem all loose canvas edges. (You may need 2 seams for each long edge of rug. If so, overlap ends of 2 seams when sewing them to canvas.)
STEP 3
For loopy rag rugging, cut the rest of the 3 pairs of jeans into 1cm-wide, long strips avoiding seams (see Cutting strips with scissors, below).
STEP 4
Loopy rag rug 1 row along 1 short edge of canvas, close to hem (see How to loopy rag rug, page 188). Your loops should be 2cm in height so denim stays secure. Rag rug 3 more rows of denim, working toward rug centre (4 rows in total), to form a block of denim at end of rug. Repeat these 4 rows at other short canvas edge.
STEP 5
To create the chevrons, measure and divide remaining bare canvas into 4 sections, widthwise and lengthwise. Draw 3 long lines along length of canvas then draw diagonal lines (as shown in picture, opposite).
STEP 6
Using same shade of denim as blocks at ends of rug, loopy rag rug 3 rows along each of the 3 long lines of rug. In same shade of denim, loopy rag rug 2 rows along each of the diagonal chevron lines.
STEP 7
Loopy rag rug 5 diagonal rows in different shades of denim, as done in Step 6.
STEP 8
Cut white shirts into long strips for loopy rag rugging. Shirt fabric is much thinner than denim, so add thickness by using 2 strips at once. When you reach the end of 1 or both strips, pull them through to top and cut both strips to 2cm
in height. Loopy rag rug the rest of the canvas with shirts in this way.
