If you cut your own batting, I strongly suggest cutting it 2 1/4 instead of 2 1/2. Katahdin batting suggested is much thinner than Warm and Natural batting. If you use a purchased Jelly Roll, the batting and a large spool of thread your rug will cost about $70.

A suggestion: in place of a jelly roll use all those pieces of binding strips leftover from quilt projects. Just sew them all together for a scrappy version.

I haven't tried them, but I have a very large one that style on my kitchen floor made by my Grandmother about 60 years ago using sewn together fabric strips, she always had a huge ball of these and she used 3 large plastic needles made from rat tailed combs and she braided them, no batting needed, she braided as she went and so no sewing. I regret to this day not learning this from her.

I made two rugs. I cut my own strips, using fabric that I have but will NEVER use in a quilt. (Can’t say why I liked it at the time). I did not want to use up a “nice” jelly roll for a rug.......When I finished cutting my strips, I had about 60. I cut my own batting. I used up all of my batting scraps that I have saved from squaring up my quilts. Nice to see that pile gone!! I cut my batting about 1/8” narrower than the strips. I did this because I thought when I folded it over 3x’s it would be pushing out of the edges. This worked great for me.

From the amount of strips I cut, I have one large oval and one small oval rug. The nice thing about this project is, you can STOP when you get to the size you want your rug to be. I did not buy the pattern, but I did watch a couple youtube tutorials. I like the way Donna Jordan sewed her folded over strips (in the middle) better than the other tutorial that I watched (along the open edge).

Here is the key: And as Martha Pullen says......”Press (steam), press (steam), press (steam), press (steam)” going around the corners!!!!! And my rugs look great using the fabrics that I never would have used in a quilt..... :-)

Thank you for your post. Appreciated.

The braids are held together by lacing them...took a few classes years ago by a local rug braideder...and we had a bent lacing needle that had two holes in the end where to insert a strong carpet thread for lacing.

I have made one (so far) and plan to make more with some modification on the next one.

My first was the rectangular one made with a jelly roll (40 strips). I had about 3 strips from the roll left over, but that was only because i cut the two binding strips from additional yardage of the same fabric line to match the valance i made for the window in that room.

Some helpful suggestions? If i could offer even just one... which would be to really press everything very flat at every step! If you dont, it will be harder to zigzag the strips together in the final steps because there is a surprising amount of bulk! I was using a heavy duty machine - my Janome 6600 with the AccuFeed engaged and i really had to pay attention and slow the speed down to a crawl in order to keep the zigzag well formed and catching all layers. I would also suggest using variegated thread.

For batting: I used Bonsal 2 1/2”. I am aware that the 2 1/4” is now available, but i already have 4 rolls of the 2 1/2” so will work with what i have. I plan a little experiment - to cut the batting in half width wise to 1 1/8” and see if that makes things any easier. I may also try using the “sasher” by Pauline Rogers from Australia in hopes of streamlining the process of forming the initial strip/batting at the beginning. I have no idea whether i will be happy with the weight of the finished rug once the bulk is reduced, so will assemble 4 strips to see what i think before continuing.

I do like my rug...
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Correction to the above - i plan to cut the batting in half to 1 1/4” - not 1 1/8”! My apologies.