Knitting a Seashell Floor Rug

Perth is a sandpit. And my kids (and dog) are determined to make our house a sandpit too. Walking barefoot in our house feels like walking along the beach some days (without the crashing waves and pretty sunset).

I hate the crunchy texture of sand on my feet (when I’m not at the beach). It’s a reminder of how far behind I am on the housecleaning. Or about the futility of vacuuming. Didn’t I vacuum in here an hour ago?

We have a doormat outside the back door, which tries it’s best to catch the sand. But it needs help. Some inside help. A knitted floor rug was needed.

When I had the opportunity to review the book “Knitting Fabric Rugs” (affiliate link) by Karen Tiede, a ray of hope shone into my heart. Maybe a knitted floor rug would pretty up my back door, and trap that dastardly sand. Win win!

Being a beginner knitter, after reading through the book, I headed straight towards a project at the back. That’s where they put the easy ones, isn’t it?

Actually, all the projects in the book are straight-forward, only requiring a standard garter knit stitch, casting on and off and the occasional increase or decrease. Here’s my seashell knitted floor rug:

Karen Tiede specialises in making rugs from recycled fabric. The book provides details of how to select and make fabric from old clothing (although a few extra photos on how to cut the fabric would have been useful).

I’m not a fan of the uneven and free-form look of recycled fabric strips, so I bought Hoooked Ribbon XL Zpagetti yarn in Sea Blue, Teal Delight and Sandy Ecru. Even though I don’t want the floor to feel like a beach, I like beach colours for my living area!

The patterns include written instructions and knitting diagrams. I liked referring to both of them to understand what I needed to do. The seashell pattern in the book used 4 colours of yarn, and I only had three. After making the basic swirl pattern, I realised my swirls weren’t going to fit together.

I used the basic pattern to create an extra smaller swirl to fill in the inner section of my seashell. It’s not perfect, but good enough for the kids to wipe their feet on!

I imagine Karen writes like she speaks. It’s like having a chat with a slightly kooky aunt. She knits small sections at a time and joins them due to problems with her hands not being able to support too much bulky knitting.

She describes her design process, from making a paper plan,  knitting the rug, and assembling the knitted pieces (although the joining instructions could have used images to make it more clear for the beginner). She explains fabric selection and colour combinations, how to cut the fabric and determine the approximate gauge of the resultant yarn, along with the patterns to make the rugs.

While I’m not a fan of the rag rug look, with ends poking out and knots in the yarn, the pictures of her rugs are gorgeous, and it was easy to use her instructions to create something to my taste with purchased T-shirt yarn.

If you’re looking to knit something a little different (and to stop your house filling up with sand, “Knitting Fabric Rugs” is a great book to explore rug making.

I’ll report back to let you know if it helps reduce the sandy, beachy feel of my floors!

Disclosure: I received a free digital copy of Knitting Fabric Rugs from NetGalley for review purposes. All opinions are my own. This post contains affiliate links, where I make a small commission, at no cost to you, if you purchase after clicking these links. Thanks for reading CookCleanCraft!