Woodland Rug

When I saw this rug on Pintrest,

I knew I had to make one for my little boy. In fact, it may be the reason I decided to go with a woodland theme.

This was truly a labor of love and not a super fast sew, particularly not with all the other things I regularly have going on.

Once I'd had my husband print out my templates for the animals and purchased fabrics I was just about ready to begin. Pay attention to the dimensions recommended. The listed dimensions are for a smaller rug and I'd wanted a larger one.

I carefully cut out two pieces of every animal I was going to need.

The reason for this was that I planned to put the second piece over embellished pieces, top stitch around it, cut the center of the top piece, and flip it back around to the back. The purpose of this was to leave me with neater, less raw looking edges.

 What you see in the above picture is fabric cut for a smaller sized rug. It's how I realized I needed a new piece to use for the back.

Another trip to JoAnns was in order.

I had a yard of black fabric that I was planning on using as my stabilizing piece to sew everything to.

Because I had accidentally purchased enough "sky" for a small rug instead of the size I really wanted I had two, instead of one piece of fabric. I pinned the two pieces of sky blue fabric to the black and just planned to place a tree over the offending open space.

Pin a layer of green at the base of your sky and sew it down as well.

Begin adding a layer of trees and then add another layer of grass. I only cut one slice of grass instead of two and just zig-zag stitched closely to the edges.

I wanted my rug to be as close to the original as possible so I did my best to place things where they looked like they went on the original. Sewing down the bunny felt like a really nice change after making so many trees.

I couldn't wait to add the fox, he must be my favorite element.

With the last layer of grass also came the beginnings of the tree with the owl in it.

I really liked how the original poster added initials to one of the trees so I did the same. Hers looks far better than mine though. This was really only my first attempt at lowering my feed dogs and "drawing" something onto fabric.

Finally to add the hedgehog.

Then I went back in and added more details like the deer and an eye on the bunny.

I cut off the edges that weren't really going to be needed, laid out the rug on top of the headliner fabric I would be using on the back, and then cut the general outline of the rug.

Once your headliner and bias tape are sewn you're in business!

I'm happy to have managed to have gotten this finished just in the nick of time! The rug is now happily sitting in the floor of a nursery I still don't consider finished quite yet.

For the pin that inspired this all and the info on how to make this.