Before I was living more deliberately, I made many shopping decisions that weren’t all the way thought out. This rug was one of those. At Homegoods, I determined that I liked it, but couldn’t think of where I “needed” it. When I overheard another woman looking at the second (out of two) I bought it. That store has such a quick turnover, I didn’t want to miss out!

I got it home and, of course, I still didn’t have a place for it. Maybe if it was bigger? A few days later, instead of returning it, I bought the second one! It was still there! It must be luck, right?

These are the methods of thought I now know to be incongruent with my values. Even as I continue to purge excess, I still try to see where things would fit, given the right project. In this case, my upstairs hallway was the perfect length for them to run top to bottom.

They moved around a lot, and I wasn’t fooling anyone. If you have two traditional carpets you’d like to attach, head over and buy some fiberglass carpet seaming tape and follow the instructions over at Ugly Duckling House. But if, like me, you have two woven rugs that won’t give the illusion of being one with some tape, keep reading along.

Tools:

• scissors
• seam ripper
• iron

Steps for combining two woven rugs into one:

1. Look for the very last stitch. Mine had been folded over and stitched all along the edge.
2. Rip out all of those stitches and allow the hem to come undone on both edges that will meet.
3. Begin pulling the lines of weave off, starting at the end loops.
4. Once the small edging weave was removed, the warp threads (In this case, the vertical threads. These are the threads that hold a weaving together.) will be left loose.
5. Tie the rug together along the edge. This’ll have to be a little stronger than the center knots. I used about five stands on each side.
6. The warp threads will likely be tangled and gnarly when trying to use them in a different way then they have been, so I suggest ironing them flat. It’ll make your knotting much easier.
7. I tied tight knots all along the inside of the rugs, three strands from each side, untill the edge knot, which I again made stronger. All done!
8. Cut excess length of warp threads

Here’s a closeup of the top, after being combined.

When I was working on this, I really liked the way the fringe looked, so I added fringe on the edges.

Steps to make edges of a woven rug fringed:

1. Repeat steps 1-4 on outer edges.
2. Tie strands together in knots, otherwise it can fall apart
3. Iron flat

This is SO easy! Only tying knots. For the center part, it took about an hour and little to no thought. When I made the circular weave and expanded it to make large scale woven art, I was surprised how many people commended me for “hard work” or “talent!” It is really just a matter of loops and knots.

Remember: underpaid (and, at times, unskilled) workers on the other side of the world are creating the things that we think of as a cheap rugs or wall art or furniture from the store. If they can do it, so can you!