I am SO proud of my DIY zig zag rug--Tutorial!

I am SO proud of my DIY zig zag rug--Tutorial!

• 1.23.2010

You've all seen those zig zag rugs around on design and home dec catalogs, websites, magazines... The zig zag/chevron pattern is everywhere this season and I have been craving it as I redecorate our bedroom with something more contemporary!
I was so excited to copy these gorgeous zig zag rugs:

(West Elm)

(Madeline Weinrib Atelier)

 

(West Elm Rug, Rachel of Kenzipoo's house)

(West Elm rug, from Four Walls and a Roof)

(Madeline Weinrib rug in Nicole Balch's home, from Making it Lovely)

(Domino)

Anyway, LOVING these zig zag patterns, and the West Elm one really isn't that overpriced, but I didn't want to spend $100-600 or whatever, depending on the size.  But I really thought my bedroom needed some zig zag in it!  And I have enough to put on the walls, so I wanted to make a zig zag rug.  I thought about taking a plain white cotton rug and freezer paper stenciling the zig zags, then painting black on it, but I couldn't find any plain, cheap white rugs and they all had to much texture anyway.  So I went old-school.  Remember floor cloths?

To DIM (do it myself), I bought a yard of white "duck cloth," which actually comes in a lot of lovely colors at JoAnn for $7.99/yard.  It's really sturdy and has a clear weave to it, not like twill, just straight-grain.  Anyway I had a coupon, but because of some sale and the piece I got had some dust on it so she counted it as a remnant... it ended up being $2.73 for the yard-sized piece.  It's about 60" wide, too, so it was about the size of a 3'x5' rug.  See, here is it is folded in half.

So here's my tutorial.

• Fold a 1-2" hem around all the edges .  I wanted mine to be sturdy and have a lot of weight on the edges, so it won't roll or fold up a lot.
• I tested the freezer paper with my craft paint (black acrylic paint mixed 2:1 with fabric medium).  You can sort of see the freezer paper scrap on the underside of the hemmed rug, with a smudge of black paint on it.

Then I peeled it off.

• Cut your freezer paper strips into 2" long pieces.  Cut those into pieces 3 3/4", 5 5/8", and a few pieces just under 2" squares.  I didn't count how many I needed, but... a lot.  Most of the ones I needed were the 3 3/4" size.

• Lay the strips out on the rug at one corner.  I used a 45 degree angle.  Iron it down in rows.
  
• In order to space the next row, use the spare strips or a ruler to measure 2" from the top row.

• Repeat this all the way down!  I stopped halfway through to paint the first side, because I was so excited to see the end result and because I was sort of afraid of the corners coming up as I kept moving the rug and bending it a little to get the next row down.  Sorry, no pics of this part...
  
• Peel the freezer paper off!  It's not perfect, but it gets the look!

• Last step: I realized I needed to protect the unpainted parts from dirt, so I added a coat of polyurethane.  Stinky!  Hopefully when it dries it will be evenly plastic-ey.

Yay!  I'm so excited about this!  I put a rug pad under it even though it's on carpet, just to make it even stickier.