Hula Hoop Loom

So the other day I was searching for some DIY rug projects. I wanted to make some rugs to put on the ugly linoleum floor in the room that will be the baby's room. I found this project (it has a great picture tutorial) and decided to give it a whirl. Instead of using old t-shirts to weave with, I used fabric scraps, as I have lots of those and not many old shirts! I did pick up a couple old shirts from the Re-Use Shed at the dump to use as the warp.

To start with, I cut 11, 1 inch strips from a t-shirt and stretched them over the hula hoop, spacing them evenly. I then started weaving in my fabric scraps. It goes deceivingly fast at first, but the big mat ended up taking hours and hours to do. The second mat probably only took a couple hours. I think it took so long because my fabric scraps weren't as thick, so I needed a lot more of them! I finished off the weaving by cutting the loops and tying them around the weft. To make the smaller mat, I used my smaller hula hoop as a loom, although you could use a big one and not weave as far.

I love the way they look. I'm hoping to do a couple more smaller mats and join them all together in a funky way!