How to Make a Bath Rug

Cut or tear cotton fabric into strips 1/2-inch wide and as long as the fabric will allow. Join the strips together into one long length, overlapping one end of a strip over the next strip by 1/2 inch, and using a sewing needle and thread to stitch them together with three or four stitches. Roll the long fabric strip into a ball for ease of use.

Use the cotton rag strip to knit a square or an oblong at least 18 inches wide along one side, using knit stitch. Large knitting needles are best so that you get a little looseness between stitches. If you run out of fabric strip, simply tear some more strips, sew them together as before and continue knitting. Cast off when you're happy with the size of your knitting.

To knit stitch, put the point of your right-hand needle through the front of the loop of the first stitch on the left-hand needle, and wind the yarn around the right-hand needle from back to front. Use the right-hand needle point to bring the wound yarn through to the front and slip the stitch off the left-hand needle.

Tear more 1/2-inch strips of fabric, this time 2 inches in length. Start at one corner of the knitted square. Use a crochet hook to push one end of a strip through the knitting, and pull it almost half way through. Push the other end of the strip through the next hole along, and pull it through, so that you have a loop of fabric anchored by one strand of the knitting. Tie a single knot in the strip. Continue along the rug, tying strips of fabric into the knitted base, until the whole area is covered and you have a deep pile shag effect on one side of the rug.

Leave the rug as it is, or bind the edges with bias binding. Alternatively, tear strips of fabric 1/4-inch wide, sew them together into one long length as in Step 1 and thread one end into a large-eye darning needle. Sew a blanket stitch around the perimeter to neaten the edges. Unthread the darning needle, tuck the end of the strip into the blanket stitch and sew it in with a couple of stitches using a sewing needle and thread.