A Different Kind of Rug Binding

Yeah, I've taken a break from working on the vintage cat rug in order to bind the Chicken Challenge rug.  Since a few girls shared their Chicken Challenge rug with Barb Carroll when they attended her camp I wanted to take mine as well but it needed to be bound first.  Click the link above if you want to see how to join the Chicken Challenge for free and get the free pattern.

After hooking the piece and after preparing the foundation wasn't sure how I wanted to bind it.  But when push came to shove and it was time to do the deed knew what I wanted for my dear chick.  I decided to use a primitive technique taught by Betsy Reed last November when she taught class.  Actually I used the same technique to bind the pillow rug hooked in her class and you can see that in the blog archives this past December or January. 

Here is my li'l chick rug all hooked and finally bound.  I thought this would be a great way to bind the rug and the little white whipping all around sorta frames the cream chicken in the center.  I love it.

The binding fabric is 100% cotton ripped at 2 1/2" wide which I pre-washed, put in a coffee bath (or tea bath), rinsed and then tossed in the dryer to get all good and tangled.  Oy but what a mess it was to un-knot but it made the cotton fray and wrinkle which is great for the antique look.

Then I rolled the foundation forward and whipped it to just to keep it stable.  Frankly I prefer doing this in stages rather than all the tasks at the same time.  No way my hands could handle rolling the foundation and using the cotton and still control the size of the roll.  No thanks I'll just do one task at a time.  What you see below is the cotton at the top and hard to see because of the flash is the rolled edge against the wooden TV tray.

Next I folded the cotton in half across the front and back of the rolled foundation and did a running stitch all the way around in and out of the ditch.

Here is another view but the flash back is making it hard to see.  Amazing how the flash alters the colors.... that is the same black cotton strip as seen in the photo above.  As you can tell I was taking long running stitches just to secure the cotton in place.  Oops, got a photo of my TV remote in the process.

Then took some tea dye or walnut dyed cotton crochet thread and whipped around the cotton binding all the way around.  You first saw the front of the rug in the first picture and here is the back.  Everything is covered.

I'm so happy that Betsy taught us this in class because it looks not only old as if the rug had to be repaired, but in my case it frames the cream colored chicken.  Thanks for that class Betsy and can't wait to have you again this next November.

Saundra