Do you see that exclamation point firmly planted in the title of this post? That is because this is maybe one of my favorite diy’s I’ve done. It has completely opened my options for how I shop for rugs. And it transformed a mass produced one into something that feels much more expensive and vintage. We have this 9×12 in our living room and I like it for its persian-y feel. I knew if I could swing adding some tassels it would go from good to great.
(Upon writing this post I see the price for the 9×12 is down to $279 for a closeout sale!)
For my tassels, I searched for something sturdier than yarn, but softer than twine. And I wanted a white, which is one of the secondary colors in the rug. I found this sugar’n cream yarn in ecru at hobby lobby to be perfect. (Or here it is on amazon too). I bought a big one pound spool for $14 and you know with that 40% coupon lifestyle it was even cheaper. (I thought that would be way more than I needed, but I ended up using about half of it.) The only other tool needed is a latch hook like this one. I also got mine at hobby lobby, where it was like $2.
The process is very easy. I cut the string into seven inch pieces. (After some testing, I found that was the best length for the scale I liked. It ends up being about half that size in tassel form because you fold it in half, as you’ll see.) On the edge of the rug, I count out every five threads and then grab two threads (so threads number six and seven) with the rug hook.
Fold two strings in half and around hook. Pull strings through rug threads. Remove hook. Put ends of string through loop and pull tight.
The pictures explain it best!
To complete the first side of the rug it was about eleven hours. And three of those hours was the first foot! It took a while to experiment with my technique and get going, but by the end you’ll be so much faster. The whole second side took me only six hours.
For me that is a long project, but when I think of most knitting, crochet, cross stitch, quilting-type things, that seems to be on par with how it goes.
One way I thought about this project (and how I sometimes think when we are diy-ing) is how much I get “paid” per hour. This rug was $500, but with the changes I made to it, I feel like it looks more like an antique persian that of this size would have easily cost $3,000. So for working seventeen hours total, I “earned” about $150 an hour (and the materials were negligible in cost). I know there are other factors, but I find this way of thinking inspiring.
Along with making the rug look much nicer, it adds a surprisingly large amount of texture and character to the room.
Do you see that exclamation point firmly planted in the title of this post? That is because this is maybe one of my favorite diy’s I’ve done. It has completely opened my options for how I shop for rugs. And it transformed a mass produced one into something that feels much more expensive and vintage.
