Tuesday, December 29, 2015

How To Make Coins For a Penny Rug

Playing around on Pinterest last week led me to researching penny rugs.  What are they?  A very frugal way to decorate your home.
Normally made with wool, you could use most any fabric I think.  This photo shows a vintage piece.  These became popular in the Early American Era.  Used for table covers, candle mats and actual hearth rugs.  The round shapes are the earliest designs because the pattern was an actual penny, which used to be about the size of our current quarter.
I started by picking up a very cheap pack of felt at Walmart just to see if I was really going to like doing this.  I used a half dollar, quarter and dime as my patterns and I found that curved cuticle scissors worked well for cutting out circles.
There are several ways to sew these, most all using a simple blanket stitch.  Looks like most people pin their coins but I chose to use a tiny stitch in the center and then a couple of hidden stitches through the layers to hold the pieces in place.  I did use small knots at the end of the thread piece, there's enough cushion that they won't matter.  Black thread is traditional but I didn't want to buy any so I used 3 strands of DMC cotton embroidery thread in an olive brown color.
Here are about half of the coins I've made in the last week, just a few at a time, here and there.  I am not going for perfection, I rather like the imperfections.
After the first few coins I decided I really did like this craft but wanted a larger variety of colors in soft tones.  So I purchased this pack of wool felt (versus the Walmart felt which is made with recycled plastic). The colors are just gorgeous. 

http://stores.ebay.com/suppliescreativity is where I purchased mine and they have a huge selection, even by the yard and pre cut circles.  Shipping was very fast too.

I'll give an update once I have all the coins made.  They will be going on a soft green burlap backing.




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