Recycle, recycle

Last summer I come up with a wonderful idea . . .   I thought about crocheting rugs for our new cottage.  At first I thought I'd save all of the selvedge edges from my fabrics.  As I started off with a ball of knotted together strips I realized that a chore of this nature would require more than selvedge edges in order to have a rug anytime in the near future.

Then our son arrived with a bundle of discarded linens from his house and announced that he had cleaned out his closets and was giving us what he not longer wanted.  There were sheets and pillow cases that wouldn't fit the size beds that we have so it occurred to me to cut them up and use them for rug making.

I cut open the pillow cases, trimmed off the hems from everything, and cut the material into strips one inch wide.  Next, I stitched the strips together end to end on the sewing machine and wound my strips into a ball ready for crocheting.

By the end of the summer amid my other projects, I'd managed to put together my first rug.  I'd even decided which of the bedrooms it would go to.  That bedroom is yet to be finished and the rug has been introduced to the floor on my side of the bed.  It's lovely and my dog likes to sleep there too.



Over the winter I helped my brother organized his linen closet.  It was full of mismatched sheets, some that were older than his children.  He said I could get rid of any that were not complete sets.

You know what I was thinking don't you . . .

This is one queen sized sheet plus a bit of a pillow case and the rug is half the size I want it to be.