Transcripts
1. Intro: Who is Recycled Parts 4 Art: everybody, Jerry, believe me here from recycled parts for art. I just like to take a moment and tell you a little bit about me before we get started with our workshop. I am a recycling artist, and that means that I prefer to use found junk. When I'm creating and I find my junk all over. I find it at flea markets and thrift stores. I find it in the street. I haven't in my house where something should be tossed and I keep it and make something else with it. And I really enjoy it gives me great satisfaction to recycle these things and create mark with them. So that's that's who I am. That's what I'm all about. Let's talk about the class for a second. We're going to be making ready rag rugs, so I use recycled fabric for that, and I have. I just happen to have a look here to inspire you before we get started, and so I use 100% cotton fabrics because I like to wash and drawing my ready Brek drugs and I have used sheets. I've took tourney up clothing, and I also have some old quilting fabrics left over from when I used to be a big sewer back on the day. So this is a very long road. It's 52 inches by 21 inches wide, and I use it in front of the bath tub. So I am stepping on it with wet feet, and it is awesome because it's cotton. It dries quickly, and I love it, and I have made very many of them all right now. The other thing I wanted to tease you with is that I have made also these things called Braddy rag bags, and this one in particular is again all kind of fabrics. But this one has a denim Denham straps, and it's a nice big tote that you can drag your projects around. This one's lined. I don't line all of them, but this one is, and I just might do a class on this one, too. Leave me a message in the comments below, if you're interested in now, I wanted to talk about how I teach. So I do have a pattern to get you started when you're making a ratty rag, Brooke. But your whole rug isn't going to be OK, Jerry said, due to stitches here and four stitches there. It's not like that at all. I teach intuitively, so I want you to as you're going along, make decisions based on what your rugs doing. And the reason I do that is some people Kirsch a tight, and some people Cochet lose. And so the increases aren't going to be in the same spots for everyone. So we're going to go over all that, and I promise you I will be very clear in how that is done. And if you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask. I would like to request that as you go along with your projects, you post photographs in the project section that that is so encouraging other people to see your work as you go along, even if it's not coming out right, even if it's if it's coming to a point on one end and round on the other, we want to see it because I could tell you exactly what you've done wrong when you post that picture. So please do that and let's see, I think that about covered it. Oh, I did give, um, a short lesson in the middle of the video on how to do single Cochet and chain stitch. In case you don't know how to crow Shea, if you do know how to do those ditches, you can skip over that section. All right, let's get started. Let's make a ready rag round.
2. What Supplies do I need?: All right, let's talk about supplies. The very first thing you're gonna need obviously is your fabric. And I use 100% cotton that's been washed and dried in the dryer so that later on, when I wanna wash my ratty rag rug, there's no shrinkage. So today I've decided to use greens. It's my favorite color. And so I went into my fabric stash and I grabbed a bunch of different green fabrics, and I lay them out to see if any of them stand out to me and look like they shouldn't, you know, be in there now when you're choosing your fabrics. Personal taste comes into play here, and I like to put some pops of brighter colors in my rug. You don't have to. You could make a rug. It's all one fabric. You could just choose this one and make the entire rug out of this one fabric. I prefer the variegated look, so that's why I try to use at least 10 to 15 different fabrics, sometimes even more so. There you have it for the fabrics. Now that we have our fabric picked out, we also will be needing a ruler right so I just have a small 12 inch ruler. You'll also need a scissor. Now. I love to use this nipper, and this one is a Giger Nipper, and it's very sharp. And the reason I prefer this over a scissor is when I'm cutting my little slits. It's just makes it really, really easy. It's easy on my hands. I can hold on to it and cut the slits, and it's just awesome. You'll see that later on in the class. If you don't have a nipper and you need to use a pair of scissors, that's fine. Just make sure that they are fabric scissors, meaning they need to be sharp. They need to be able to cut the fabric and not chew it. Yeah, you're also gonna need a kirsch, a hook, and I have two of them here because you might not be able to find this plastic 11 It does not have a size on it, but I measured it and it is 10 millimeters around. And as you can see, it's bigger than the, um, the blue one. This is a size K, and I believe it's the largest in the metal. Christy hooks. So if you can't find this one, you can use the K. Now, why would I pick this plastic one over the K is because it's a little bigger. This ditches will be a little bigger. It will be a little easier on your hand if you use the bigger crush a hook.
3. Preparing Your Fabric: Now we're ready to start preparing our strips of fabric, and the first thing we're going to do is take our piece of material. And this particular piece is about 18 inches wide, and it is approximately 36 inches long. I will generally rip them so that I winds up with the longest piece of fabric. Now this piece of fabric has already been ripped, and so the edge you can tell is straight, whereas this side was cut with a scissor. So we're going to start on the side that was already ripped, and we're gonna get our ruler. I do not use a ruler. I'm just going to use it for the class so that you can see approximately how wide to make your strips. So this fabric is a nice weight, and some of your cotton fabric you'll find is rather thin. And some of it, you'll find, is a little thicker. It does not mean that you can't mix the two fabrics in your rug. You certainly can, but what you want to do is you'll want to rip the thicker fabric a little smaller and the thinner fabric you'll want to rip a little bigger. And now we're gonna talk about how wide we're going to rip it. So and on average, I would say I would rip my fabric approximately between 3/4 of an inch and 787 inch. If it's very thin, I'll rip it at an inch. So that's where my nippers come in handy and I just nip the edge about in about 1/4 to 1/2 of an inch and I will do that. And I I've all it. So once I get that measurement, then I just eyeball it. Now go all the way across. Now you don't have to cut the whole piece at once. You can stop, you know, we can stop right there. Now the next thing we're going to do is rip the fabric and because we cut that little slit , it will rip very easy. I'm going to go all the way down and rip to the end. But I am not going to let go of this piece of fabric. So I'm going to do the next and I'm going to do this four times. Say that I have four strips of fabric pinched in between my fingers. All right now, you do get a lot of loose threads, which can be annoying. And I I just tried to grab them and set them aside. I do not throw these out. Believe it or not, I have on my have a YouTube channel, and I have a really clever project that I use those threads, um, that I used with those threats. All right, so now I've got this the ends, all four pieces together, and I'm just going to fold that over approximately 1/4 of an inch. And I'm gonna take my nipper, which hopefully is sharp, and I'm just going to put a little slit and see that a little slip in there. Okay. And now that I've got all these pieces in my hands, I'm going to go down to the other end, and I'm going to arrange all four pieces, go down to the other end, folded over and cut a slit. So now we've got a little slit in both sides, and that is a time saving tip to do it that way. Then I would just set thes strips aside and go on to do either the rest of that fabric or to just choose another color
4. Attaching Your Fabric Strips: Now we're ready to connect our strips. And this is a good time to also clean up you're strips and get all that excess. Um, string off your strip, and I just go like that and run it through my hands a little bit and get rid of it. And remember, I said, don't throw these away. These are gorgeous. See that? Beautiful threat? I just love that. All right. Remember the notch we made? This is the right side. Remember the notch we made when we were cutting or ripping our fabric? So we're gonna connect it that way. So you're going to take the right side up and you're going to lay the right side down. So the right sides together, let me bring you in a little bit, and you're going to push this strip through that whole. Okay, so that's what it's gonna look like now you're going to get to the end of the strip that's on the top, and you're gonna push it through the notch and pull it all the way down. And that's kind of what it's gonna look like now. You're going to tighten it up very gently. If you pull on this too hard. You can rip your strip, you can rip the notch. So that's what you want to do. And you want it to look, you know, somewhat like that. That's a nice, flat, smooth connection. And you're just gonna keep doing that toe all your strips and you're gonna if you like the variegated look, you're going to pick up your strips very randomly and you're just going to keep connecting them. Now that I have a lot of my strips put together, I am going to wrap it into a ball, and here we are. So I have a nice little ball and this is not near enough to make a rug. But it's a start. And as I said, I get bored ripping the strips. So I rip, I crush a I reply, crush A. I do a little bit of, um, of everything
5. Learn Simple Single Crochet and Chain Stitch: All right, we've got our fabric ball, and we've got our crush a hook, and we are ready to start crashing. So the first thing I'm going to do is create a loop, and I just Okay, just wrap that around like that. Now I'm going to take the end. The tail is in my hand. We're gonna take the other end and push it up through the loop from the bottom. And I've created a loop, and now I'm going to stick my crush a hook in there and pull it down. And you want to make sure you have at least a 3 to 4 inch tail. All right, now I'm right handed. So the crash, a hook is in my right hand and the fabric is in my left. So let's just say that you want to make sure that the right side of the fabric is on the outside, that the right side is showing because some of the fabric, it really doesn't matter. This particular one, it really doesn't matter. It's they're both pretty green. But I'm going to stick my pointer finger under there and just kind of just push it a little bit And when I do that, it starts to fold it in half, okay? And normally I don't even do that. And I'll show you in a minute how the fabric is just gonna twist on itself. And I just let it I just let it twist. But if, for example, some fabrics have state, let's use a black fabric, for example, black on one side. But then on the other side, it's almost white. And so you want the black to show. So you're going to take a moment and do this when you get to that black fabric. All right, so now here, we're ready to do a chain stitch. So we put our hook under, grab the fabric and pull it through. Now we'll do it again, and I'm going to say something else that I want you to dio under. Grab, pull it through. Now, when you pull it through, I want you to just give it a slight tug so that your stitches are not really tight. So you see there's a little space there. I want you to have a little space because if you don't and your stitches air really tight, it's gonna be very hard on your hand. All right, so here, I might want to do this. Do you have? That's pretty white under there, you know? Honestly, out. I'll be honest with you. It doesn't matter to me. It doesn't bother me, but I'm showing you in case it bothers you. Okay, so there you go. Under and pull through. Under. Pull through. Under. Pull through. Okay, so that's the chain stitch under Pull through. All right, Now, this is just a sampling to show you how to Cochet. We haven't started the rug yet. Now we're going to do a single Cochet because what you need to do in this drug is a chain stitch and a single Cochet. So now we're going to do a single. So the stitch that my hook is on, we're not gonna count that we're going to skip the next stitch right here. We're going to skip that and we're going to go into the third stitch. Now there's there's a loop here at the top. You're going to go into the loop and you're gonna grab the fabric just the way it did in the chain. But you're not gonna pull it all the way through. Okay, so now I've got two stitches on my hook. Now I'm going to go back under the fabric, grab it and pull it through both stitches. And that is your first single Crow. Shit. Let's do that again. Now I'm going to go into the next stitch, so we're going to go into the top of the next loop, which is right here. Let me get a pencil. See? Right here. Okay, so we're gonna go in there, grab the fabric, pull it through, adjust it, grab the fabric again and pull it through both loops. Okay? And give it a little tug so that it's not real tight. Now, you see how this fabric is starting to twist. I'm going to let it do that. That's that's how I normally rrochet. I don't worry about the right or wrong sides, But I did want to show you that in case, you know, you did want to make one side or the other show. Okay, so now we're going to go into the next stitch, and here it is, right here. Here's another loop in. Grab. Pull up, adjust. Go down again. Grab and pull through both loops. Okay? And give it a little adjustment. We've got three stitches there. Let's do one more. Go in the top of the loop. Grab pull up a just wrap around and pull through. Okay? Single crow Shea. All right. And that's it. That's all we need to dio. The increases are going to be taught during the process, and they are nothing more than two single crow Shays in one stitch.
6. Let's Begin Crocheting Your Rug! : All right, we're ready to crash A Here is a ball of our strips of fabric, and we've got our kirsch a hook, and the rug we're making is an oval rug. Now you can make your rug whatever size you want. Whatever shape you want, this class I'm trying to teach you how to make thes rugs. Not necessarily how to make this specific size rug. So I'm going to give you the directions for the size that I have made, which is 32 by 21. But you can alter that in many ways. And as I go through the class with you, you will begin to understand how that is, how that is done. So the first thing you're gonna dio is make your little slip to get your crushing started. However, you start crashing and that's how I do mind and make a little slip. You're gonna leave about a three inch consume in a little bit more. You're going to do about a three inch tail now. I'm right handed, So I'm holding the hook in my right hand and I'm holding the fabric in my left hand and I use my left. Ah, pointer finger to kind of fold the fabric in half so that I have the right sides on the outside. Now, as I mentioned to you in the last segment, I do not over think this if I wind up crushing and the wrong side is showing, it is not a big deal to me. So once I do that, I do wrap it around my finger. Now what we're gonna do here is do a chain stitch, okay? And we're gonna do a proud and we need a ruler. We're going to do approximately 11 between 11 and 12 inches, and this is for the 32 by 21 oval rug. Now, if you wanted to do around rug, it would be a little different. You would just do maybe four or five chain and you would connect it into a circle and then work from there. So I'm going to change approximately 25. Now, if you're a tight crow share, it's really important for you to try to do this loosely. If you do not, you're gonna wind up with, um, pain in your fingers. And especially if you have arthritis. I'm not so sure that you'll be able to do this now. The yarn and keep going at your on the fabric tends to want to twist when it's on the ball , so I generally will throw the ball on the floor. Let's do that right now, and I kind of go like this every so often to straighten it out or I leave it twisted. I do both. It really does not matter. It only matters if you don't like a particular thing about the strip you're using. So some fabric for me to stop there for a second tell you some fabric has a whiter underneath. And if you don't want that showing, then you definitely have to fold your fabric and wrap it around and crush A like that so it doesn't show me. I don't care. This is to me. This is a recycled project. I think it's gorgeous. No matter if there's little peaks of the underneath coming out or not, I just love it, and I have made so so so so many of these. I've made bowls, I make handbags. Um, if you're interested, you can visit my Etsy shop and you can see some of the things I make. So I wasn't even counting. So I'm just gonna just going to do another two stitches, I think. And thats approximately 12 inches. Now, I can move the ruler out of the way, and we are at the end. And I want to tell you that if you're occur, share, you know how the chain can twist on itself. So we want to make sure to keep that nice and flat as we're working. Now we're going to go back this way. So as we're working to go back in that direction back to the beginning, we want to make sure that this doesn't twist on itself. So we're going to skip. Here's the one stitch on the hook. We're going to skip that stitch. We're going to skip the very next one, and we're going to go into the following stitch. So it's actually the second stitch from the hook, and we're just going to do a single crochet A. Let me see if I can pull you in a little further. All right? I'm gonna have to really stay right here, and you're going to go all the way across this chain all the way across with these single crow Shays and you're going into the top of the loop. Okay, so go ahead and do that and get down to the end and we will come back when we get down to the end. All right, here we are, back at the beginning, where we started. Here's or tail and I've got It's just perfect. It's just under 12 inches long, and now we're gonna go around the corner and then go down on the other side of the James. So it's an oval. So we're going to be crashing around and around and around and on. Either end will be doing increases, and the increases are not always going to be exactly the same. Because as the rug grows, you're going to need a different amount of stitches on the ends, and we'll talk about that in a moment. So we're down here at the end, zoom in a little bit again, and I just finished this last stitch, and now what I'm going to do is put to more stitches in the same hole. So I'm going to have a total of three stitches in this hole on the end right here. Let me stick this crash a hook so you can see what I'm talking about. This is the end. Okay? So I'm gonna put two more stitches in there, And if you're a tight, this is where it comes. It becomes a problem. If you're a tight crow, share you, you're gonna have trouble getting into that hole. So that's why it's really good to try to loosen up when you're doing this. Okay, Now, we've got three stitches and you see how it went to the outside or the inside started show . It doesn't bother me, but I'll fix it for you. Now we're going to turn over and this is the little tail. Just ignore that pushes to the back. So we're going to turn around, and now we're going to crash a single crow shays in each of these loops. Let me use my blue hook so you can see we're gonna go in each of these loops with one more stitch all the way back down to the other end, okay? And we're going to go all the way back down to the other end. All right? I am now back down to the other end and As you can see, what are the chances of that? I'd be using the same exact color again. This does not bother me. If it bothers you, you could pull it out and cut it off and put a new piece in there. But this'll is free form for me, and I just love letting it evolve. So now that I'm back down to the other end, I am going to go around this corner and there's one more stitch here that I can go in. So I'm going to do the single Cochet in there and then up here it's very hard to see because it's quite tight. So I call it a manned shoot, and I'm going to aim and shoot and get three stitches down here at this end because we got three stitches down at that end. We're gonna get three up at this end, and that's going to make us go around this this curve. Okay, so that's three stitches. Now we're just going to keep going around and around and around. So now I'm going to just do one single Karsh a all the way across. And when I get down here, we're going to do another increase and we'll come back in a second and I'll show you how we're going to do that. Increase. So just to recap this, there's three stitches on this end and three stitches on this end.
7. Step by Step Increasing Explained: Now we're down at the beginning again, and this time we're going to increase by putting two stitches on the right side, two stitches in the middle and two stitches on the other side to get around the corner. Now this after a while has to become intuitive. And what I mean is you you will start to see. You'll start to notice that your piece will start to pull and buckle if it needs an increase and you're not putting one in. So I just put two Let's zoom you in again. I just put to on that side, and now I'm going to do two on the end and you notice how when I'm crushing, um, I'm gonna put the 2nd 1 in, and it's hard. If you are a tight crew share. This is really hard. I give this a little Yank. That's to make the stitch loose. And don't be afraid unless you're super loose pro share. Don't be afraid. It's not gonna be too. So I did, too, at the end, and now I'm going to do to on the other side. Okay, now that see, that's laying nice and flat. Let's just stop for a second If I had not done those two stitches. What? Winds up ups were off camera. Okay, so now that's nice and flat. I'm sorry if I had not put those two stitches to stitches into what winds up happening, is it? It starts to go like this. It pulls. So now it's laying nice and flat. Now I'm going to go all the way down with single core Shea, and we're going to do the same thing on this end. We're gonna put 22 into, All right, We're back down to the other end, and I'm actually working. If you're noticing, I'm actually working on two, um, samples at the same time. So this is a different sample. This one happened tohave mawr. Um, I'm what I keep wanting to call this thread more fabric attached to it. So I switched over. So now I'm getting ready to do, too. And now I'm going to turn it so you can see it, and I'm going to put to in the end and turning it again and to on this side to get around this curve. Let's back out for a second and do one. I want to show you what happens. So I'm supposed to do to here. But I'm just going to do one. So now if I go to do the next one, do you see how that just curled up? See how would curled up like that? That's how you know you need to do another increase. Another stitch. Okay, so now that's two. And then here is to So what I want you to learn from this is that as you go along and go around and around and around every time you get to the ends, you need to make a decision. How many stitches you need on the end? And based on how you crash a Whether you're a tight crew share or loose crow share, you may need an extra stitch. So I do not have a blow by blow row by row pattern for this rub because of this, and I find that this makes a much nicer rug when you increase when you need to. All right, so now I've got my 22 and two. So once you get this far, the rest of it is really quite intuitive. So I'm going to go down here, and when we get to the end, I'm gonna come back, and we'll just talk about going around that corner
8. Intuitively Increasing: Your Turn!: way are back down to the end again. And let's do this together and I'll talk out loud. So here we are. I'm gonna put one stitch in there. Nano. I'm not sure. So I'm going to these give you in, so I'm not sure. So I'm going to pretend that I think that one stitch is just fine. And I'm gonna do the next stitch. All right? That's still laying flat. So I'm good. But I can tell you right now, because this stitch is really going like this. It needs another stitch in there. Because if I tried to put avoid adding an increased there and just went into the next ditch , I can tell you that it's gonna go like this, so you might have to, um, experiment a little bit when you're first getting started. But if you're a crow share, um, you get a feel for it now, as your end starts to get wider, you may only need one increase right in the middle, and you may get away with one stitch on either end. But that says you go around and around and we're not going to go row by row with this in this class with this rug. I'm trying to teach you how to use your intuition to go around the edges at this point. And I am going to put two here because I put two on this end. So I wanted to be balanced to get away around and see what now See, that's starting to cup. It's starting to cup a little bit, so I will say, Let me back that out and let me put another Let me put two stitches on this side and then one Let's see how that yeah, much better, much better. I see that, OK, going to stop here for a moment and explain to you gonna back out and explain to you that this fabric is very forgiving and it's got a certain amount of elasticity to it. So if you have a little bit of a problem with as you progress with your rug going up a little bit, don't worry about it unless it's, you know, really obnoxious. Because when you're all finished, what I wind up doing is I just kind of give it a little pull here and there, and I lay it down on the floor and I have another Corp. It, um, a room sized carpet in my living room, and I actually will pick the carpet up, lay this down on the floor and lay the carpet on top of it and put something heavy on top of it. And I leave it for a day or so. When you go back to it, your rug is going to be as flat as anything. All right, So, um, I think, uh, that's about it for this right now. Keep going around and around and around until you make it the size that you want, and then we'll talk about ending it off.
9. Bonus! Round Rugs: Let's just say you want to make a circle rug. You don't want to make an oval rug. So let's just get started and you're going to put four chains. 12 three, four. And now you're gonna connect. You're circling. If you're Chris share, you know what I'm talking about. So I connected it. And now I have a circle of chains, and here is the center. So now I'm going to put several one to three, four, five, six. Now, I know when I've put enough in there because it fills up the whole circle in lace flat at six. Seven, eight, I think is gonna do it. And I am an eyeball er So we've got eight single crow Shea in there, and if you feel you want to put more, you go right ahead. And now we're back at the first stitch going from the bottom. Okay, so we're gonna go in there, and we're just gonna keep going around and around and around. So let's put a single Cochet in there, and you're going to have to do increases so that this doesn't go like that, just like we did on the end of our over one. Now, I think we need an increase already. And there we go. Put an increase in there. And as I said, when we were doing the Oval, you have to go with your intuition One. So I think we're gonna do another increase right there. Two. And if you're not sure, you can do this ditch without it, and you'll see if it starts to buckle. You know you need an increase. So I'm going to say I think we're gonna need an increase in each and every stitch all the way around, okay? And you're just gonna keep going around and around, and as this gets bigger, you'll see that you'll be doing an increase. You might skip a few stitches and then do another increase. But if you're not certain, lay it down and make sure that it lays nice and flat. If it starts to do this, then you know it's time to do an increase
10. Ending Off and Tips: Okay, So I have given you two options. I've talked about the oval one and actually showed you how to do that. And I've also given you the option to make around one, and I've kind of explained that to you as well. So if you have any questions at all, please send me a message or leave me a comment and I would be happy to answer you, but, um, the next thing we're going to talk about is ending the rub. So let's assume that this rug is as big as we want it to get, and we want to now end it. What I like to do before I actually end might rub off. I like to switch over to one color and do an entire a sweep around the entire rug of just one color that would require approximately one yard of fabric for a rug. That is the size that we're making in this class 32 by 21. And that's just approximate. So you'd need about a yard of fabric to get all the way around. So assume we went all the way around with one color, and now we're ready to end off. I like to end my rugs at close to a corner or close to the end, so I like to end it right around here. So what? I'm going to dio, even though this isn't really ready to end. Obviously I'm going to end it anyway, just so you can see how it it will end. All right, so that's about where I would want to end it. And it's very simple to end it instead of doing a single crow. Shea, you're just going to pull the thread up and pull it right through the loop, and I do that twice. So now I'm going back in as if I was going to do a single. And instead of wrapping my yarn around, I just pulled the loop through like that, Okay? And then I cut this off and pull that end through just like that. Now that's when I would flip it over. Here's the end. I would flip it over, and we've this end in, and I do that with a smaller krish a hook, and you only need about three inches of fabric. So I just weave it in. Keep doing that and then I take a needle and thread and I stitch it with the same color. I'll use whatever color. I'll try to match that as closely as I can, and I'll just kind of took it down and stitch it so that it's not gonna come out. And then I go back to the beginning and I do the same exact thing with the beginning, and I just we've that in. And if you don't have a needle and thread, you don't even need to do that. You can just we've it in and trim it off. It's trust me. It's not coming out okay, and when you weave it in, it's really stuck in there nicely. So this is the back side of the road and you can see it does look a little different. And this is the front. Now. At this point, you could really I mean, you know that we, um and did it over here, but it's really barely noticeable. So at this point, then I would look at my rug, examine the whole thing, and anywhere there's a big chunk of loose threads. I just pull them out and really there's hardly any I don't over think it, guys. And my rugs air beautiful. So that's it. And I hope you have enjoyed this class. And please, if you have any questions or comments, please don't hesitate to contact me. I've really enjoyed doing this system. Be there. Just saw little piece. And as I said, I keep this beautiful thread and I make another project with it. Please visit me on YouTube. I am under recycled parts for art is my channel. I'm also on instagram and Twitter, my recycled parts on Twitter and on Instagram. It's recycled parts with number four art and I thank you for taking my class and I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. And you have a blessed day full of love and recycled art and thank you for watching by.
Jeri Bellini, Recycled Parts 4 Art
