For this rag rug, I used upholstery fabric and a lacing technique that’s no-sew as far as using a sewing machine. I like doing braided rag rugs this way because you don’t end up with the zig zag stitch that’s visible on the surface of the rug, and it gives the finished rug a little stretchiness that can be used to adjust it if there are spots that don’t want to lie flat.
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How long did it take to make the rag rug?
I’ll start by saying that this was the second braided rag rug that I’ve made, so I wasn’t 100% new to it, but it still took a long time because the rug ended up being about 4′ x 6′. I kept track of the time that I worked on it, and it was about 15 hours of braiding, including the time that it took to rip the fabric into strips, and 28 hours of lacing the rug together!
This time I was able to use a braiding stand that was specifically designed for making fabric braids, and that made it go a lot faster. The way that I had been doing it was to sit on the floor and braid the strips together while holding my foot over the end to keep it tight, but that gets awkward.
With the stand that I found in a resale craft supply store, I was able to sit up and do the braiding, and it went a lot faster and less awkwardly. I couldn’t find the same one online since this one is vintage, but you can get a similar one on Etsy here: Rag Rug Braiding Stand. 
When it came time to lace the rug together, I was experimenting with different types of fabrics and how to fold them, so that probably slowed me down a little. When I was using regular cotton quilting fabric it sped the lacing up, and the upholstery fabric strips slowed it down.
It would also have gone faster if I had the lacing strips folded like bias tape to begin with so that I didn’t have to do it as I laced, but that would also add a little time in the form of prepping the strips, so that could be a wash as far as time goes.
How much fabric did it take?
I had bought 16 yards of upholstery fabric to make this, and I also used some contrasting fabric to give it some variation. I used two strips of the main fabric in each braid with one contrasting piece, and I estimate that it probably took about 24 yards of upholstery fabric plus regular cotton fabric to make a rug this size.
Now keep in mind that upholstery fabric is wider than regular sewing fabric, and it’s also thicker, so 16 yards of that is going to give you more to work with than 16 yards of regular cotton quilting fabric. The extra fabric that I added in was a mix of cottons and more upholstery fabric in different patterns, and it worked fine, so don’t be afraid to mix different fabrics together.
I’ll also add that I bought this fabric at thrift stores, so I spent around $120 total for all of it. Keep an eye out for bolts of old upholstery fabric if you’re out shopping, because this one was $4 a yard and the colors worked really well. Even if it’s not a pattern that you like, look at the colors to see if they’ll look good in a rug, You’re not going to see the actual pattern when you’re done!
This rug ended up being about 4′ x 6′, and I used up pretty much all of the fabric. I did leave some of the braid to make a little dog bed since the house this was going to had a dog, and I thought it would be cute to have a matching bed.
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What to do before making the strips.
If you’re using a cotton fabric, wash it before you tear or cut the strips. There’s so much sizing and chemicals in cotton and upholstery fabrics, it’s pretty toxic if you’re handling it. I didn’t wash the fabric before I started so I had to do it after I made the braid, and it was a pain in the butt to get it in and out of the washing machine. It also frayed the braid on the edges, so it’s better to do all the washing before you start making the strips.
Don’t try to skip this step, either. When I was braiding the unwashed fabric I could smell the chemicals in it, and I had to stop at one point because my lips were starting to feel all tingly, which is not a good sign.
When I finally ended up washing the fabric the amount of lint that came out of it was horrifying. It was so thick it looked like pink fiberglass batting, I’m not exaggerating. My husband saw it in the trash can next to the dryer and made a comment about it to me later, so definitely get that stuff off of the fabric as much as you can before handing it.
Tear the strips.
I just tore the fabric into strips that were about 2″ wide, going with the grain to keep everything even on the edges. You can cut them with a rotary cutter if you want to, but it’s a lot faster to just tear them into strips.
If you do tear them there will probably be more strings on the edges of the fabric as you’re working with them, but that’s not a big deal.
If you want to try to avoid the strings, you can cut the strips with pinking shears, but that’s going to add a SUBSTANTIAL amount of time to the process of making the strips.
I had a little ripping party by myself and tore the entire bolt of the main fabric into strips so that they would be ready to use. It saves time while you’re working to not have to stop and tear more strips, but if you’re not sure how much fabric you’ll be using save some to tear later.
If you’re using a wool fabric that’s like felt, you’ll probably have to cut everything by hand because that’s not going to rip evenly if there’s no grain to it! Ripping it works for woven fabrics, but knits and felted fabrics will need to be cut.
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Start braiding.
Start braiding by cutting small slits in the end of three strips, and pulling one through the other two, then through itself to make a knot. This photo is of a different rug that I’m making (you can see it here on my other website) to show what it looks like when they’re attached. You can also sew them together if you want to use a sewing machine.
Start braiding the strips together using either a braiding stand or a clip to hold the braid so that you can braid it tightly enough. Try to turn the edges of the strips into the center so that the frayed edges won’t appear on the outside of the braids. That will help the braid look neater and will also keep it from fraying over time.
Braid the strips so that one of the sides of the braid is pretty smooth without any edges of the strips showing, and the other side has the frayed edges and knots where you attach the strips together are. Try to keep one side pretty smooth-looking, though, because that will be the front of the rug and the edgy side will be the back.
As you’re braiding, keep an eye on where the end is so that you can start the rug with it later. Don’t roll it up into a ball unless you know how to make a yarn ball that lets you pull the string out of the middle. When you’re putting the rug together you want to have the loose end of the braid on the outside of the rug so that you can add more to it if you want to later.
I just let the strand fall onto a pile on the floor as I worked, and I rolled it into a ball later after I started lacing the rug together to keep the braid more manageable.
When you’re adding strips to each other when they get too short, cut a slit in the end of the strip and in the end of the next one, and put the new strip through the slit on the old one. Then pull the new strip through the slit on itself, and pull it tight to create a knot.
After I braided for a while I went over and arranged the braid into an oval to see how big it was, and it wasn’t that big. So back to braiding, and I would come back to test the size of it every now and then.
When it got pretty big (I was aiming for 4′ x 6″ approximately) I did some more braiding but not too much, since I wanted to keep some of the strips for the lacing part.
It took me 15 hours total of braiding and ripping strips from the fabric to get enough strips to make a rug the size that I wanted.
Start lacing the rug together.
When you’re working on lacing the braid together, work on the back side of the rug so that all of the stitching is on the reverse side with the knots and edges of the fabric. The front will be the smoother side of the braid, and the back will be the side that has most of the weird stuff.
Starting the rug is going to be the hardest part, since you won’t have a lot of fabric to work with to hold it stable. I used a piece in the center that was about 8″ or 9″ long and bent it, then started to lace from the inside bent edge. Then when you get to the end of the beginning piece, curve the braid around on the other side of the beginning strip and go down the other side.
I use this rag rug needle that was made for an Amish Knot rag rug to lace the braided strips together. (To see the Amish Knot rag rug tutorial click here.)
I used another strip of fabric to basically weave the two braids together, pulling the strip through the outside loops of the two braids as they’re butted up against each other. I did a video showing how to do it with tips on that, because it’s important to know where to place the stitches so that they don’t get pulled too tightly:
Go slowly on the center piece, since you want to make sure that it lies flat and is straight on the edges. The center of the rug is the foundation of the shape, so you want to make sure that it’s flat. Once you get the center piece finished it will go faster, but take your time with the starting part.
I also decided that lacing with the fabric folded over like bias tape would be easier to use as a lace, so if you have time, go ahead and do that. If you can iron the fabric to a bias tape fold before lacing with it, it will be faster when you’re working. I was doing it as I was lacing, so it slowed me down a little.
I decided to try some actual bias tape to do the lacing, and it was really fast, but since bias tape is bias tape, it’s cut on the bias so it might have some stretch to it, even if it’s a tiny bit. I don’t know how that works, but if I had a ton of bias tape I wouldn’t be against using it as the lacing fabric. I would also try out fabric twine, which I just learned about recently, but would probably work pretty well.
As you work, lace back and forth without stretching the outside braid, and by keeping the rug and the braid edges butted up together and not overlapping. If you didn’t watch the video that I posted above, I’d suggest watching that, because it’s easier to show it than to describe it.
Keep lacing the rug braid together.
I had laid the coil out on the floor, so I left it there and just pulled the braid out when I needed more. When I was done working each day I put the laced rug back with the loose coils around it. You’ll start getting the braid twisted up as you pull it from the arranged loops, but you can pick the laced part up and untwist the braid when you need to.
Once you’re down to a smaller amount of braid left, you can take the braid from the outside of the laid-out coils and make a ball of the braids. Then when it gets twisted you can pick the ball up and turn it around to unwind it instead of picking the laced rug up, since it will be too big to do that at this point.
Keep working until the rug is the size that you want it to be. If you use up the entire braid and it’s too small, you can add more onto the end of the braid to make it bigger. If it’s big enough and you have braid left over, you can cut it off and use it for another project.
To finish the rug off, take about 6″ of the braided strand, unwind it and weave them into the back of the rug, then stitch them in place using upholstery thread. I had an upholstery needle that I used to stitch them into the rug to hold them in place. I also went around the edge of the rug and stitched down any edges of knots that were poking out from the edge of the rug.
Try to “smooth out” the place where you attach the final part of the braid, because no matter what you do, it’s going to make a bump where the end falls. With the way this is laced, it can be stretched to smooth it out a little, but you can also weave the loose ends of the braid into the edge to make it look lees obvious. You can see where I ended this one but oh well, it still looks nice!
The final rug.
The front side of the finished rug should be mostly smooth braid, but there will also be loose threads because that’s a natural part of the rug. If you started with the bias tape-type fabric strips it will be less likely, but you’ll still get knots where you attach the strips of fabric together.
If you try to work the knots into the back of the rug as you’re braiding it together they’ll be less obvious, but you’re going to get odds and ends pieces here and there. Because of the way the rugs look, though, it shouldn’t be too much, and the appearance of the rug will be fine.
It took me 28 hours to lace this rug together
Using the extra braid.
If you have extra braid, you can make a smaller rug or a basket. I decided to put a little basket/dog bed together using my sewing machine and the zig zag stitch for a couple of reasons.
First, I don’t like the way that the zig zag looks on a rag rug, and I wanted to show that for this article. Second, I have trouble with the sewing machine and braided rugs anyway, I can’t make them lie flat, so I figured I’d go with it and make a basket instead of something that’s supposed to be flat.
My cat ended up sitting on the basket and flattening it out, so I think the dog will probably do that, too, which is fine. Since this is something for them, they can crush it and it can be crooked, and it’s no big deal. Trying out a little rug on the sewing machine is fine to test it out, but you have to have a flat surface for the rug to sit on or it really ends up being easy to make it warped and not lie flat.
I hope that this article and video were helpful, and that I gave you enough information to start your own braided rag rug project. This craft is a lot of fun to make, and you can use it in your house as decor afterward. Leave me questions under the video on YouTube and I’ll be glad to answer any questions!