Inspired Design Challenge Week 2 – Urban Outfitters

Happy Monday!  I hope you all had a great weekend.  We definitely did and I am so excited to be back for our second week of the Inspired Design Challenge.  This week, we’ve chosen inspiration from Urban Outfitters.

I posted my inspiration and a teaser photo on Saturday.  If you didn’t see that post, I was very inspired by these two rugs.

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I love the overall bohemian style these have {if you didn’t see my love for bohemian modern, you can see it here and here.}

I found these rugs at Garden Ridge for $5.99 each.

 

They are rag rugs made up of strips of printed fabric.  They remind me a lot of Kantha blankets made up of small strips of saris.

As soon as I saw them, I knew I wanted to do something with them.  I considered stitching them together to make a larger area rug, which would be awesome.  But then I thought about a leather ottoman that I wanted to recover.  What a fun slipcover these rugs would make instead of just regular fabric!

So, here’s what I came up with:

And here’s how we did it:

I first have to give a big thanks to my sweet mama for helping with this project.  Our first thought was to cut the rugs into 5 pieces: 1 for the top and 4 for the sides.

We measured and began cutting the fabric and this happened.

Due to how they’re put together, they immediately fell to pieces when you cut because the white threads run the entire length of the rug, so when they are cut the whole thing falls apart.

My mom is such a creative and talented seamstress and crafter, so she immediately figured out a solution to avoid cutting the rugs.

First, we laid one rug over the slipcover and folded the corners just like wrapping a present.

We pinned it and laid the other rug on top to make sure the bottom was even all the way around before stitching anything.

Once we had both pinned, we carefully took off the top one and stitched the corners down on the bottom rug.  We stitched it by hand because these rugs were too thick to go through the machine and it would also be a bit difficult with how we were structuring it.  After doing that, we put the top one back on and stitched not only the corners, but we also stitched the two rugs together where the top and bottom rug met.

I really love how it turned out.

I love the texture and different colors, but probably my favorite part is the fringe along the bottom.

This slipcover only took two rugs, so for $12.00, I took the plain ottoman to something with a bit more bohemian personality.

Make sure you go and check out what my other friends came up with.  Here was their inspiration.

1. Jennifer from Brave New Home

2. Angie from Angie’s Roost

3. Kristin from Bliss at Home

4. Sara from Embrace My Space