Braided Jean Rug

Sometimes it takes me a long time to finish a project.  In this case, fifteen months!  Don't worry, I didn't work on it throughout that whole time - my excuse for not finishing earlier is that I had a baby...

I love it when I can make something new and useful with materials that would normally just be thrown out.  In this case, I used old worn out jeans to make a rug! 

Back over a year ago we had several pairs of jeans that were getting holes in them and couldn't be worn anymore.  It took approximately 3 pairs of jeans to make my rug, but since then we have accumulated more unwearable jeans, so I may have to make another rug!

If you're interested in making your own braided jean rug, here is how I did it.  And don't worry, it doesn't have to take you as long as it took me to finish it!

Braided Jean Rug - Made with old jeans!

Start by cutting your old jeans into one inch strips.  You won't be using the seams or waistband, just the plain, single layer denim.  It's a lot of cutting, but it is nice to get it all finished first, before you start braiding.

A big pile of denim strips!

Next you start braiding the strips together.  One way to get started is use a safety pin to attach three strands together and pin them to a solid surface.  Then start braiding!

There are several options for attaching the next strip of denim when you come to the end of one of your pieces.  I found the easiest way was to cut a short slit in the middle of the end of each piece and thread them through each other, as you can see in the picture.

Then you pull the link tight, and keep braiding.  It's good to try to stagger the strips of denim so that only one ends at a time, since attaching the new pieces this way can be a little bulky.  I mixed up all my different shades of denim to give a variegated appearance, but you could also braid one shade of denim at a time for a different look.

Four pairs of jeans made approximately 85 feet of braid.  That's a lot!

I think all of that denim braid looks really pretty!

Then it's time to sew your rug together.  As time consuming as the previous stages seemed, this is the one that really bogged me down!  It is exciting to see the rug coming together, it just takes a lot of sewing.

I used a needle and black thread and hand sewed it.  If you have a heavy duty sewing machine that could handle something this thick, that would be much faster.  But I think that would have killed my sewing machine, so I didn't attempt it.

Sometimes the denim can be hard to work with, so I ended up using a thimble for a lot of it.

I resumed working on the rug this year, and just finished it this week!

When the rug reached a size that I liked, I cut the braid, and wove the ends in.  The finished rug is about 20 inches by 27 inches, and took approximately 50 feet of braid to make.

Our new braided jean rug in the kitchen!

What are some of your favourite ways of repurpose something instead of throwing it out?