Braided Rugs: Basic Skills

Making Strips Determine your braid width. This is purely a matter of personal preference. The desired braid width and the thickness of your fabric determines how wide to cut or tear the strips. If you are mixing different kinds of fabrics, you may need to make strips of different widths in the same rug, to maintain braid consistency. With thin fabric, perhaps start with 2" strips - that is wide enough to practice the folding/tucking and lacing techniques and makes a pleasing size of braid. Extremely thick fabric, like blankets, will need to be wider and will make a soft, cushy braid. Cut or tear the fabric with the grain to make your life easier.

Attaching Strips This method gives you invisible seams

Place the existing strip vertically, right side up, on the table
Place the attachment strip horizontally, reverse side up, on top of the existing strip, at a right angle to the bottom right of the existing strip

Stitch the strips together diagonally exactly as shown

Trim as shown

Folding strips Purists will advise pre-folding (and ironing, hah!) your entire stock of strips, but that sounds incredibly boring to me and I have no problem folding as I go -- especially since I purchased Braid-Aids. This folding method will completely tuck and hide any frayed edges.

With reverse ("wrong") side of fabric facing you, visualize the vertical center of the strip.

Fold the left edge of the fabric over to meet the vertical center

Do the same with the right edge of the strip. The strip is now half the width than it was originally.

Finally, fold the strip in half again, left side over the right side. The folded strip is now a quarter the width of the original. As you braid, the smooth final fold on the strip will be to your left, and the open side of the folded strip will be on the right and to the inside of the braid.