Cotton Crocheted Rug

It's FO Friday, and I'm still bustin' my stash. This little rug was another experiment. It's a big crocheted oval, made with a US size N hook and 3 strands of worsted weight cotton yarn held together. It turned out great, although I haven't actually used it as a rug or washed it yet.

UPDATE: It machine-washes and dries like a dream. If any loose ends stick out, just push them through to the underside.

Since this is another prototype that I designed on the fly, there's no pattern for it. If you're interested, I can throw the instructions together for you... just let me know. Like the lap-ghan, it's fast and easy, and a great stash-buster.

For more FO Friday finished objects on other blogs, check here.

Carmel Macchiato Tarnation Rug

This rug is made from the Tarnation Rectangle Rug pattern, which is now up on Ravelry (and here) as a free download. Two of the t-shirts had all-over printed fabric, and this gives the rug some added interest in the way it turned out. However, it took a special technique for cutting the tarn so it would curl with the print side out, which is more time-consuming than regular tarn-cutting. It looks so good, I think it was worth the extra effort. Here's how to do it.

For more variations on the Tarnation Rectangle Rug, see the following posts:
Drip-Dry Tarnation Rug
Plarnation Rectangle Rug
Tarnation Kitchen Runner Rug

Avoiding the Owie with Tarn

Cutting and working with tarn (T-shirt yARN) can be painful. Here are some tips for minimizing the owie, which you can use with the Tarnation Rectangle Rug and Tarnation Oval Rug patterns.

1. Don't get too carried away with cutting the tarn, or your hand will start to hurt. It’s best to break it up into short time periods. I like to cut a shirt or section of a shirt, crochet (or knit) it into the project, and then cut more.

2. Use nice, sharp scissors for cutting tarn. As for sewing, you might want to get a brand new pair, and designate it for tarn cutting only. Scissors used for cutting paper quickly become too dull for fabric cutting, and tarn is a stretchy, thickish fabric, so you need all the help you can get. There have been reports of tarn-cutting wreaking havoc on good sewing scissors, so an inexpensive, new pair of sharp scissors for your tarn is a good idea.

3. Stick with crochet. I love knitting, but for tarn, knitting causes the strands to “grab” the needles, causing a lot of pushing and pulling to get each stitch made. Crochet can be done loosely enough to minimize the grabbiness.

4. Work a bit more loosely than you would with regular yarn. The harder you have to pull to get the stitches made, the sooner your arms, neck, and shoulder will start to hurt.

5. Take lots of breaks. Stop and shake out your hands and arms, stand up and stretch, whatever you need to do to keep the muscles relaxed and the blood circulating. Also, longer breaks give your hands and arms some recovery time.

6. Cut your tarn thin, but not too thin. Anything wider than 1/2” will be hard on your hands and arms, but thinner than that, the fabric can sometimes unravel and break when pulled hard.


You can find more crochet tips for the Tarnation Rectangle Rug and Tarnation Oval Rug patterns in the following posts:
Choosing Shirts for a Tarn Rug
How to Make Tarn
Making the Print Show
Allover Print Tarn
Mending a Tarn Rug

Choosing Shirts for a Tarn Rug

When the shirts you cut for tarn are assorted in fabric content and thickness, your finished item can come out kind of wonky after machine washing and drying. That's because the fabrics draw up differently. In a square or rectangular piece, like the Tarnation Rectangle Rug, it can be a problem, while in a round rug, oval rug, or mesh piece like The Ultimate Recycled Market Bag, it's not even noticeable.

When your rug comes out of the wash looking like the picture above, just give it a few yanks with your hands grasping the row-ends, and the stitches will even themselves up.

But the real solution is in being choosy about which shirts you select for the rug:

1. In the best of all worlds, you would have 5-10 shirts in your closet that were all made by the same manufacturer in the same fabric in complementary colors.

2. In the second-best world, your shirts would still have labels in them stating that they have the same fabric content, and the thickness of the material feels about equal... again in colors that work well together.

3. If you have barely enough shirts, and you're dying to make a rug, just go for it. The rug will still look great, and you can yank it back into shape after washing.

It also helps to follow these suggestions:

4. Make your foundation chain run down the long side of the rug (like in the Tarnation Rectangle Rug pattern, and not like the rug pictured above). Long rows hold their shape better in the wash.

5. Use your thickest fabric with the highest cotton content for the middle rows, and the thinner blends for the beginning and ending rows. As you can see in the rug pictured above, the middle black stripe is the weak link. That's because the stronger rows above and below pull on the black stitches in the wash. If those weaker stitches were on the ends, they wouldn't get jerked around so much.

6. Consider saving your mismatched-fabric shirts for a mesh bag or an oval or round rug. (Here's an oval version of the Tarnation Rug: Tarnation Oval Rug.)


You can find more tips for working with tarn here:
Saving Your Hands and Arms When Using Tarn
How to Make Tarn
Making the Print Show
Allover Print Tarn
Mending a Tarn Rug

WIP Wednesday: Tarn Rug

It's Work-In-Progress Wednesday, and I've been working on this t-shirt yarn rug for the past week. At the moment, it has about 3-1/2 turtleneck shirts crocheted into it, with probably 5 more to go. It's 32" wide and 13" long. I hope it doesn't turn out to be too big for frequent washing and drying. I might have to rethink the dimensions for easier washing--maybe rotate it, so the 32" is the length, and keep going until it's just 24" long. Have to think about it.

Last week I posted some notes on how I'm making it.

For more WIP Wednesday posts on other blogs, check here.

UPDATE: After looking at this photo, I realized that there was a mistake about halfway up. Most of the time, I just keep going after a mistake because it doesn't usually show. However, this one is on the edge (left edge stairstep from forgetting the ch1 at the start of the row). It would always show and always bother me, so I frogged back. Now I will be more careful. Argh.

Evolution of a Rug

Check out my grandmother's hand-hewn crochet hook, upper left.
It's Work-In-Progress Wednesday, and I'm back! In December, we bought a new house in a new town, and I have been up to my eyeballs in boxes, packing materials, and stuff. For the last few months, my time has been mostly spent unpacking and selling-off zillions of items from three households (mine, my husband's, and a friend who passed away).

We have a very old cat--adopted him from our departed friend. He is becoming incontinent, and he usually makes it to the vicinity of the catbox, but... well... let's just say the floor of the utility room is getting cleaned A LOT. I put my little t-shirt yarn rug there, and it's working well because it's so easy to wash. It grabs and holds the puddles instead of having the grout lines become little yellow rivers. So I desperately need a second tarn (t-shirt yarn) rug, to switch out with during the laundering process.

This one is made of a bunch of old turtlenecks of mine. I had a collection of many colors, all in the same style and fabric. They are out of style now, and I have others that I like way better, so it's time to crochet a rug!

For more WIP Wednesday posts on other blogs, check here.

UPDATE: Since instructions for this rug have been requested, I'm going to try to tell you how I made this... haven't created a pattern yet... maybe a free one someday soon.

ANOTHER UPDATE: The pattern has now been produced and tested, and it's available as a free download. Tarnation Rectangle Rug