Make a Braided Plastic Bag Rug
Edited by Doug Collins, Eng, Joanie, jody
6 Parts:
I would like to thank Mom Eberhard for the awesome video on How to DIY Braided Plastic Bag Rug. I organized it into a wiki for anyone with a hearing impairment, or for those who just prefer to read the steps. Hope you enjoy it. :)
Contents
Part One
- 1Today I'm going to show you how to make a Braided Rug out of plastic grocery bags, here is one design.
- 2Here is another one.
- 3Here is another one as well, if you have less bags of one color you can just put them in the center and surround with the colors that you have more of.
- 4If you have two colors then you can do a two color as well, so that's the goal.
- 5You can see that these are very thick, and they're waterproof so they can go outside, and they're pretty heavy.
- 6First, get some grocery bags and flatten them down.Let's start with how you start making the Rugs.
- 7Cut about 4 or 5 at a time because the actual cutting doesn't have to be actually unique, just you've got to cut the bottoms off.
- 8Cut off the top side.
- 9Take these back to the grocery store for recycling.
- 10Now, you've made a loop.
- 11Next thing to do is to know how to braid a four-stranded braid, I used these pieces of T-shirts that I cut into strips so you could learn it.
- 12Now you have four strands, "I'll state them in color to be clear".
- 13This red strand goes over the black.
- 14The green strand goes under the black one.
- 15The white strand goes over the black.
- 16The green strand goes over the red.Ready to start it again.
- 17The white strand goes under the red one.
- 18The last Black strand goes over the Red.
- 19You do this every time.
- 20White strand over the green, the black under the green, and the red over the green.
- 21You can tighten it up, you'll see after a while that it gets to its own set width.
- 22Again, over, under, over, tighten a bit, and move on.
- 23At any point along the way, you can tighten it, widen it, make it narrow, or adjust it as you go along so that it all end up even.
- 24"Today I'm going to start a Rug like this except, I was only able to get a couple of the red bags, so my center would be smaller but I'll be using these colors".
- 25To start the Rug, get the grocery bags which already cut." By the way, if you live in an apartment and you don't want to be snowed under with bags, cut them, store them, in a simple little box, and you can store hundreds and hundreds of bags in a simple box, which is good because the box can take 160 to 200 bags".
- 26Take one of each color and start the Rug.
- 27Make several giant loops out of the each bag.
- 28Try to make the knot smaller.
- 29Take another two bags and insert one around the other and tighten to make your giant loop.
- 30Now we have our four colors to start.
- 31Now you remember your four stranded braids.
- 32The white goes over gray.
- 33The brown goes under the gray.
- 34This goes over.
- 35Give it a little twist.
- 36Over, under.
- 37Over.
- 38As I mentioned earlier to make your own width, this is what it's doing and you'll get to know this width because as you adjust it to the carpet you'll be adjusting to about that natural width.
- 39Gray over.
- 40White under.
- 41Always to keep everything as flat as possible.Brown over.
- 42As you can see I've only come to this far and I'm already running out of bags.
- 43You can add another loop when you ran out.
- 44Tightened the knot well.
- 45This is a big bag, after cutting the top and the bottom I cut it in half, this means that you will not end up having all the knots at the same spot, it doesn't matter much but it makes it a little easier.
- 46Make the loops for the other bags.
- 47The red one.
- 48The brown one.
- 49The trick is you tug it so that this is your central point because if you make an uneven ring, you'll have this puff here, so the trick is to give it a little tug there to where you want your knot to go.
- 50So back to the same work, lay it out like it was before.
- 51Now, brown is over.
- 52Gray is under.
- 53The red one is over.
- 54You can make as long as you want just consider that if you make it too long you're going to spend all the day doing it"."Now , I am going to make a roundish Rug, and just going to do it this long.
- 55We've got the four strands, over, under, and over then you need to tuck it in the next one.
- 56I'm putting it down so you can see it, I still have the three strands.
- 57"Remember the width as you go down you need to adjust the width. I usually leave the stand up until I find that loop and get that in there".Again, over, under, over, and tuck the last one in.
- 58Now, the red over the brown, and the white goes under the brown.
- 59Tuck the brown one in.
- 60Pull it to the end.
- 61Constantly, you should always be adjusting.
- 62When you get to the curve, you may have to put two in the same hole in order to maintain that width as you come around the curve.
Video: Make a Braided Plastic Bag Rug
Part Two
So, I've added a few stitches to get us down to the very first corner.
Steps
- 1When you come around corner you have to make sure to grab those loops or the rug is going to unravel.Now if you remember I just folded over and that left me with two loops here.
2
So, keep going, we've got the four strands, white is Over the red
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3
The gray is under the red, and the brown is over the red, and the red goes through the loop and pull the red
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4
If the strand is big you can fix it by just twisting it
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5
Now, put the white bag through the knot and pull
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6
Again, we've got the four strands, gray, brown, red, and white, the gray over the brown, the red under the gray and the white is over the gray, and finally to put the gray through the loop and pull it well
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7
Nice width as it comes around with a curve
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8
So, after repeating the pattern, over, under, and over put the last strand through the same hole
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9
Again, the gray is over the red, the white is under the red
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10
The brown goes over the red
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11
You need to find the loop which is gray and white
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12
Put the red strand through that loop
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13
Use a gray bag to extend the gray strand
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14
This looks way too long
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15
Go back in and pull that and tighten it up, that looks better, you can adjust as you go along at any time would be perfect
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16
As you are coming around the curve, you need to put the bag in the same hole, as the Rug gets bigger you don't have to put it in the same hole as many times, in fact, you'll find yourself only doubling up on a hole when you're on the corner curves
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17
That looks about the width that I want
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18
Adding bags, that's the only thing you will seem to be doing because the Rug will take 160 to 200 bags
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19
Again back to the same pattern, brown is over the white
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20
The red is under the white
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21
The gray is over the white and white bag goes through the knot
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22
Flatten the Rug
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23
It looks very nice
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24
If it gets a little puffy when you put it through, you just need to twist it a little
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25
That's the basics of how you start it and how you come around the first curve
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26
I have a Rug already started and I'd like to finish it off, so I will show you how to finish a Rug
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27
We're back to the four bags
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28
The second bag goes over the first bag
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29
The third bag goes under the second
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30
Then tie a knot using the third and the fourth bags together
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31
Put the end through the Rug and if it gets tight use a pencil
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32
In the end, you will have a little bit of a hangs out, it won't pull out because we've been working them through all along
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33
keep putting this bag through the Rug in this direction to the end
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34
Same thing you need to do to this bag till it ends
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35
When done with two bags, tie a knot using the other two bags together 
36
Finish each bag through the Rug to the end
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37
Hopefully, you understand that it's a little tricky learning with the width of four bags and trying to keep tagging it 
38
When you're done you'll have a Rug the will last years and it costs you nothing and didn't have to purchase and you're doing the environment good by using plastic bags
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Video: Make a Braided Plastic Bag Rug Part Two
Questions and Answers
Why does this get so confusing when tucking in the colors?
OK so I am braiding the bags as shown, but then when she starts tucking in the bags it really gets confusing. I'm sorry but it just gets confusing when she starts tucking the bags
VisiHow QnA. This section is not written yet. Want to join in? Click EDIT to write this answer.
When I cut the plastic bag how wide do I cut the strips?
I want to braid a mat. how wide do I cut the strips to start braiding
VisiHow QnA. This section is not written yet. Want to join in? Click EDIT to write this answer.
Which strand gets tucked on the curve and where? does is come from bottom up or top down?
I have watched this 100 times and it isn't clear AT ALL what strand gets pulled through and where? Is it pulled through from top to bottom, or does it come up from bottom to top? So frustrating because these are crappy instructions and video doesn't show it! I have know idea what strand gets tucked and where it gets tucked at. does it pull up through the bottom, or is pulled from top to the bottom? is the same strand tucked every time or does it alternate? video does not show this crucial step. I have tried: Tucking what strand I think should be pulled through and not sure where. I think it was caused by: Poor video the camera needs to be overhead. shes not clear on exactly where and how to pull through said strand.
VisiHow QnA. This section is not written yet. Want to join in? Click EDIT to write this answer.
If you have problems with any of the steps in this article, please ask a question for more help, or post in the comments section below.
