Rag Rug for Sunbonnet Sue

I've decided to make a rag rug to join Sunbonnet Sue in our Antique heirlooms guest bedroom. The picture I showed in my previous post had a braided rug I found on-line at Walmart, but it was too pastel for my liking. So the hunt was on for some 30's colors of fabics. Of course I have zero 30's fabric in my stash. I didn't want to spend a fortune for fabric for a rug so off to thrift stores to hunt for old sheets. Well, that didn't produce much luck, so I decided since I had to return the other rug to Walmart I would check out their discount bolts. Here is what I ended up with. Most was $2 a yard. I figured I would need about 18 yards of fabric. After Walmart I headed on over to Joann's for some bleached muslin for the white sections of the rug. I got the 110" length to make my strips nice and long and used my 50% coupon.

I want my oval rug to be about 36" x 60" so I substract the width from the length to get my starting chain length. My chain needs to be 24" long. I am starting with white, then a color row and continue to that pattern for the entire rug. White, color, white, color...... I will post some pics as I go along.

TUTORIAL
Here is a link to a tutorial to make a rag rug. Rag Rug Tutorial

I decided to prewash all the fabric to remove the sizing and soften it up a bit. I really wanted to make the rug out of flannel, but couldn't find any at a cheap price, so I opted for cotton and prewashed and even used fabric softener. I have arthritis so I knew this project would play havoc with my wrists, so anything to soften the process will be helpful.

Now off to start ripping fabric. The fabric prep for a rag rug is more time consuming than crocheting it.