Choosing fabric for a rag rug. What works and what does not

wool mill ends rescued from the Pendleton factory floor are a dream to crochet a rug with

how to choose fabrics that make a durable and attractive rag rug

   I rarely follow the advice I read.  Instead of making my rag rugs with only old sheets or t-shirts, as nearly everything I read on the subject advised, I was determined to try to rag rug with every kind of fabric I could get my hands on.   My experimentation has led to some surprising results.  I have collected my results from all my trial and error and am sharing it here.  Learn what I believe to be the best fabrics for rag rugs and which fabrics I will avoid using in the future.
​    This is just a guideline.  The whole point of making this kind of rug is to recycle fabrics that would otherwise be put in the trash.  So, use what you have, most any kind of fabric can be made to work.   This advice only applies if you have the luxury of choice.  

fabric CHOICES

Name a type of fabric and I have probably included it in a rag rug.    I will share a list of fabrics that I would happily work with again and a list of those I would not and my reasons for feeling that way
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best fabrics for making rugs

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• upcycled cashmere or wool sweaters: the best are light weight sweaters with a tighter knit (not chunky or open weave).  This is  probably my very favorite material to crochet with. No fraying, no big mess when cutting strips. stretchy without being overly so. available in a wide variety of great colors. easily found inexpensively at my local thrift shops. the strips are soft on the hand and forgiving to work with.  work up to make a soft yet durable rug that can be washed in cold water                                   
• wool blanket selvedges and mill ends​:                                               These are the leftovers from factories weaving wool blankets.  They are available for purchase in bulk, and inexpensive as they would otherwise be thrown away.  If you can imagine cutting your favorite wool blanket into strips, that is what these are like.   While not as stretchy or quite as soft as sweaters, these make an even denser and longer lasting rug 

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• cotton sheets (percale or flannel) :  If you tell people you know that you are looking for old bedding to use to make rugs, I am willing to bet that you will receive so many donations, you will not need to look for rag rugging materials for a very long time, unless,  of course, they are rugmakers as well.  Sheets are great, they are easy to find, easy to rip into strips, give a large amount of fabric in an easy to manage shape (just one queen sheet is about four yards of fabric).  They are machine washable and dryable and old sheets are not going to shrink or have their colors bleed.  If you run out of supply from your friends, they can be had at thrift shops usually for only a couple of dollars.  The only downside to using sheets might be the sometimes-limited color palate.                
• denim:                                                           I probably like the look of denim more than any other fabric (I like so many fabrics, I have a different favorite every week)  I like how the indigos from different pairs of jeans provide so much color variation, while always (in my eyes) remaining a neutral color that goes with everything.  Denim is durable and widely available as well as machine washable.  When I am hunting for jeans I start in the XXXL men's section of the thrift store.  100% cotton denim is a little harder to work with.  Although I like the look and feel of pure cotton denim, if I have a choice, I will pick denim that has a little bit of spandex or elastane in it.  That little bit of stretch makes an enormous difference.   Your fabric will be less likely to tear, softer on your hands, a lot less prone to fraying and you will have a great deal less fluff floating through the air when you cut it up.      

Crocheting with fabric is quite different than working with yarn.  Denim, may feel peculiar to someone who is accustomed to always using yarn.  Before starting large a rug with denim, I recommend trying a small project like my easy crocheted denim basket  . You will get a feel for crocheting with the recycled  fabric  and at that point can make an informed decision about your level of interest in working a large scale project like a rug.

This is the same rug with the silk pulling out in the above picture. This section was made with wool mill end blanket selvedges. The wool has been a much more suitable material. Those sections of the rug still look newly made.

  

• terrycloth (toweling) or french terry (sweatshirts) :                Both of these thick cotton, textured fabrics make  thick and absorbent rugs that are machine washable.   They are perfect, of course to make comfortable bath mats.  Beware the shedding when you cut toweling.  This may be the messiest to cut of all the fabrics I have used to make strips.                 .
• t - shirts or jersey sheets:                  These are extremely popular fabrics to use for this kind of crochet because t shirts are so ubiquitous.   Another nice feature of jersey material is that it rolls into a tube which hides any frayed sides from sight on your finished rug.  When I was first cutting up t shirts to make fabric yarn, the rolling into tubes made it difficult for me to keep track of the width of my strips and cut evenly.  It was only after I realized that it does not curl up until the fabric is pulled that the process became easier.  I am now very careful not to pull on the fabric until after I finish cutting my strips.  It is much easier to cut flat fabric.                                                  
• fleece:                                                       fleece does not shed at all and has no fraying, It is thick and cozy as well.  Overall, it is an easy fabric to work with.   Don't ever put it in the dryer! It is made from plastic and will melt

worst fabrics for making rugs

lightweight silk fabric strips are pulling out of this rug. The rag rug looks worn out, but has actually seen very little use and is only about two months old

• ​​​silk or other blouse weight material​:         If you have looked at this website, you may have noticed that I love silk, especially brightly colored recycled sari silk ribbon.  I have several projects posted that feature it.   I tried to incorporate the ribbon into my rugs, and it looks beautiful at first, but very quickly it starts to pull out of the rug.  It simply cannot withstand the wear and tear that a rug takes.  even when I paired the silk with sturdier fabric and tried the two ply method, it was too delicate to work.  Save your silk and other blouse weight materials for projects that will not be walked on.   It makes great , sturdy baskets and I have a few more projects in the works that I will share soon.                                   
• burlap:                                                           I had some burlap fabric in my house leftover from a gardening project and I thought that adding it to a rug would give the rug interesting texture and a cool rustic vibe.  It may have,  if I had managed to cut the fabric into strips without it shredding and shedding so much that there was more burlap thread all over my floors and stuck to my clothes than there were in the inch wide strips I was trying so hard to make.  It frayed so much that there would have been no strips left to crochet with at all.  I would advise not to try this in your home, not unless you want a big mess.  A natural colored linen fabric will provide the same rustic look without the mess and the itch and the smell of gasoline.  !00% linen frays more than many people would want to deal with.  Linen blended with a little bit of rayon looks just the same, but it is easy to work with and has a great deal less fraying.                                                           
• high tech athletic clothes:                     Leggings and workout tops are often made from stretchy, synthetic fabrics that  are great for wearing while exercising, but are too slippery and shiny and manmade looking to really make a durable or attractive rug.   Plus, there is usually not enough fabric in these types of clothing items to justify all the effort you would put into trying to make these slinky fabrics cooperate.                                               
• any fabric with a bad "feel"                 If the material snags the dry skin on my fingers, if touching it reminds me of the sound of nails on a chalkboard, if it has a polyester sheen that would look vulgar next to a mellow colored wool  I WONT USE IT IN MY RUG.  I don't want to spend time working with fabric that gives me the icks.  I don't want to see it on the floor of my home or give it to someone I love as a gift.  If I don't like it, I will donate it to the thrift store where someone who appreciates it can find it.                                   
• fabrics with a bad side                              I don't always like to spend my energy fussing with my fabric strips trying to keep only one side showing.  Therefore, I recommend quilting cottons with reservation.  I do not recommend it for use by a first time rugmaker because this print fabric requires more work to prepare and use.  If I were going to make a rug with quilting scraps, I would want to iron my strips or feed them through a bias tape maker in order to keep them folded in such a way as to show only the front.  Those extra steps make a dramatic difference in the outcome   for your rug.   If you have cotton quilting scraps and you want to use them and are either willing to spend the extra hours prepping your strips or are unbothered by the reverse side of the fabric showing, go ahead and use up those leftover pieces.  They will make a strong, machine washable and colorful rug.

     

• clothes that you or your family still wear:                                                      Ive been there before.  Making cut offs out of my favorite jeans in the middle of winter because I so desperately want to keep working on my denim rug.   Don't do this.  You will regret it.  Because rag rugs are made using found bits of  fabric instead of yards from the store, I often have to wait until I come upon  the type of fabric I want, in the color I want that is ready for upcycling.  I have learned to always keep multiple projects going.  If I run out of denim, that is okay because I can still work on my t shirt bathmat or my sari silk baskets.  When a friend hands me a bag of her worn out jeans the next week, I can pick up where I left off.

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The tan colored material you see in the middle is jersey t shirt fabric. It has been durable, but looks stretched out. Tighter stitches and a smaller hook will be my plan the next time I crochet with t shirt yarn.

things to keep in mind for all fabric types 

• The sharper the scissors , the smoother the cut.  Dull scissors cause a lot more fraying
• Your strips do not have to be  perfect.  Making rag rugs does not require the precision that making quilts dies.  Some variation in width is fine. and will probably not be noticable in the finished rug. 
• Smaller clothing with a lot of details take  a lot more time and effort to make into strips.  Making fabric yarn out of sheets takes about  a quarter the time  of making strips out of old jeans.  Cutting around all those pockets and seams  can  become tedious.   
  
• shorter strips  mean more joining.
  
• iIf all the fabrics in your rug are machine washable, so is your rug.   I always make rugs for messy areas like the bathroom or kitchen exclusively with machine  washable and dryable fabric.
• rag rugs will be slippery on hardwood or tile floors.   I dont lay  them down ion that kind of flooring before I do  something to make the rug non slip.   ( article coming soon about  all the different ways to accomplish that )
• Rag rugs tend to be thicker than other rugs.   Dont put the m in an area where people will  trip over the  high sides.

this is supposed to be fun.

The detailed areas I picture above are all parts of this rug. It turned out nicely despite all of my mistakes.

 This dark round rug is the rug I used in all the picture examples above.  I would make it very differently now, knowing what I know about how the rug will turn out.  It had a lot of mistakes and features I dont like.  The bad fabric choices I detailed are only the beginning.   But, rag rugs are very forgiving.  There are details I would change, but  I still really like this rug.  My family members really like this rug.  I still use this rug in my home.  It sits in the corner of my bedroom and serves as a bedtime story reading nook.   It will stay where it is for a long time (if the darn silk holds up).

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  The reason making these rugs is relaxing and fun for me is because I don't have to get stressed about all the details or uptight trying to make everything precise and perfect.  I make the best choices I can with the recycled materials that I have available.  Most of the things I make turn out just fine.  So, please, don't be too hard on yourself and  don't spend a fortune  at the fabric store.  Be proud that you are repurposing what would otherwise be in a landfill and glad that you saved yourself the cost of an expensive store bought rug.  Let me know how you feel about my fabric recommendations.   What did I miss?   Are there any fabrics that I was wrong about?