Many glasses of wine were killed to make this rug (or, how to make an upcycled braided t-shirt rug that takes a boatload of time and costs more than buying a ready-made one)

This project literally drove me to drink.
It all started with a lovely braided t-shirt rug from Australian blogger Cintia's site, My Poppet. Her bright and cheery creations a) make me want to go live at her house and b) are the reason Brad's office is full of bunch of unfinished sewing projects. I should mention that I haven't sewed much since junior high, yet I was looking up sewing projects on Pinterest. Go figure. I highly advise against making this if, like me, you have no idea what you are doing, but if you insist I'll share my timeline with you to let you know what you are up against. I started sometime in May, and just finished in mid-August.

Step 1: Find Cintia's awesome rug on Pinterest. It's so cozy, and will help keep off the chill in Tate's kitchen play area once winter hits. I can knock this sucker out in under a week, right? (Ha!)

Step 2: This rug is supposed to be cheap to make because you just use your own old t-shirts. I only had a couple since we've been in purge mode since Tate was born, so I bought a bunch at Salvation Army and Village Discount Outlet. I was surprised to see that they charge anywhere from .99 cents to $2.99 and up for shirts, so I tried to go on sale days. I kept going back for more, and I think overall I spent about $40 on shirts. 

Step 3: Buy a sewing machine. This is where my budget went off the rails. I had thought I could hand-sew this, but quickly realized it would take a really long(er) time so I got a 1940s Singer just like my mom's from eBay. It was $150. I could have spent $50 less, but I wanted one that included the zig-zagger attachment for sewing the braids together.

Step 4: Wash shirts, make yarn, and start braiding per the My Poppet tutorial . This was great fun at first, but not so much after weeks of braiding. Maybe my rug size was a little too ambitious?

Ooh! Pretty t-shirt yarn.

Keep away from preschoolers.

Step 5: Get ready to sew my rug! It's going to be fantastic! I'm going to make them and sell them on Etsy and make a bazillion dollars! I just found a part-time work-from-home job that doesn't involve annoying the crap out of my friends by trying to sell them stuff.

Step 6: Ditch rug-making business idea; my Singer and its flimsy zig-zagger definitely can not handle this project.

Step 7: Take a bus and two trains to Evanston and rent sewing machine from Vogue Fabrics. The guy there tells me that the machine I need costs over $1,000 so they don't rent them out, but this one should get the job done. It is supposed to cost $15 for a week, but it takes me that long to figure out how to thread the thing so I have to extend to the $35 monthly option.

Step 8: Give up trying to thread the machine and go on vacation.

 At Wells Beach in Maine, miles away from making a t-shirt rug.

Step 9:  Back from vacation and filled with a new sense of optimism (and urgency, since I don't want to pay to rent the sewing machine for two months) I figure out how to thread it and start sewing. It takes a few days, and it actually turned out pretty well. I still have to hand sew a bunch of spots where the braids didn't get stitched together. And I had trouble controlling the tension as the rug got bigger so it buckles some. But if I iron it with a damp cloth it will stay flat...until it gets picked up or moved. Then it buckles and I have to iron it again. So voila! A beautiful DIY rug that only took 3 months and, well, I'm not even going to add up the cost since I'll start to cry. But I do feel a huge sense of accomplishment for my colorful, buckle-y creation. And Tate, who is going through a stage of not liking things gave it an "I yike it," so that pretty much made it all worthwhile.