Chindi Rug Hack: Crafting for Masochists!

I accidentally fell into a time warp of some kind and haven't blogged in three weeks - I done got the Spring fever!  It's been a whirlwind of day job stress, Flonase and trying to get up the nerve to give myself the first real pedicure of the season.  I still haven't done that part BUT I've been spending most of my time prepping the yard and planning for some major changes in the next month or so.

Looks like I know shit about plants, right?!

This looks waaay more professional than it actually is because graph paper makes everything look very serious.  77% of a solid legal defense is because of graph paper.  It's true.  Hopefully I won't need a legal defense for some plants because I am ripping out bushes so big I had to call the utility people to make sure I don't destroy something vital.  More on all that fucking mess project later!

I did, however, finish a crafty project that took a good chunk of my last remaining wintery nights.  My hallway is getting some love this year after getting a fresh coat of paint and now we're focusing on textiles.  

Unfortunately my hallway is incredibly long and narrow which makes shopping for a runner an exercise in frustration.  I needed a runner that's 2.5' by about 15' which is ornery as hell.  I guess I could have had a piece of carpet bound but most of that shit is boring or expensive and I really just didn't want to google for twelve hours "how to get rug cheap pretty."  

However, something that is not boring or expensive is a chindi rug!  I have a soft spot for chindis (or rag rugs) since they're handmade of recycled materials and delightfully happy for all your funkiest needs.  In this case, an aggressively long hallway.

The good about chindis is that they're knotted together with warp yarn so in (my) theory I should be able to knot them all together to make one loooong chindi, right?  This is a rhetorical question because I did it.  They above picture is a picture of a "seam" but I won't tell you where it is.  Well, I guess it's obvious to me but I'm really selling this DIY and I bet dinner guests won't notice!

What you'll need is a selection of chindis - I found a bunch at Ollie's which is a local discount place kinda like Big Lots - and a disregard for your free time.  Also a yarn needle.

I didn't know I would need this but had one because I was helping my mom with some crochet knots and it came in quite useful because my fingernails were hurting.  You'll see why.

You can see some of the rug fringe on the right that I'm untying, separating the warp and then retying into smaller knots to the opposite rug.  You'll need that yarn needle.  I tried to stitch the rugs together and then just duct taping them together and and then I tried tying them together without untying the fringe knots and nothing really worked well.  

I don't even know why I'm explaining to you how to do this like it's a real tutorial because no one else in the history of DIYing would ever do this.  Hell, I may never do this again.

This is less than a foot of knots.  I unknotted then reknotted about 10 feet of this.  WHAT WAS I THINKING?!?!?!?!  I musta been drunk on the fact that these rugs were less than $4 each because this took a long ass mothafuckin time.  Feel free to call me Unbreakable Lacy Sauce because with enough delusion and Netflix, anything is possible.

BUT at the end of it I've forgotten all the pain and the stiff neck and the nights my friends were out partying and I was home alone on the couch underneath a pile of stinky rags because I think it turned out decently (for a $25 investment).

Sorry, poor hallway lighting.

It's a little wonky at the bottom (that was my first one) and I wish it was 8 inches wider but we all have wishes.  

Best of all, now Charlemagne can run up and down the hallway with some traction rather than look like she's Wile E. Coyote running in place.

Pardon the hairball, there was a small window of time when you're photographing cats and it's shedding season.

She would walk NEXT TO the rug for a few weeks but finally has felt okay walking on top of it and dare I say napping on it.  I've since added a rug pad to help it stay put since it drifts on top of the hardwood when we play chase.

So am I happy that I have a rug in this space?  Yes, I want Julie Andrews to add chindis to her list of favorite things.  Would I do this again or encourage someone else to do it?  Only if you're recently unemployed and have nothing to occupy your time and mildly hate yourself.

Just kidding.  Kind of.

If you like to inflict pain on yourself are you a sadist or a masochist?  Or maybe just a character from the Scarlet Letter?

But I bet I have prettier floor coverings than the puritans.