Pleasing Poms: Custom Rug Making

Since my search for the perfect living room rug took years, I decided finding a rug to add to the baby's room had to take a different route. We've only got months to work with after all!


Pinterest to the rescue, per usual: I ran across these beautiful instructions on how to make basic yarn pom-poms and how to then turn them into a rug. Perfection. And so simple! Can you move your arms? Can you tie a knot? Do you use toilet paper? Wait, don't answer that last one. I can figure it out myself.

Items Needed:

• Skeins and skeins of yarn (my three GIANTs and two smalls earned me roughly 70 poms)
• Scissors
• Rug pad
• Two empty toilet paper rolls
• A place to corral your poms (I used an empty box)

...No really, that's IT.

You should go to the more formalized instructions for the step-by-step (plus, their idea, not mine!), but in a nutshell, you wind your yarn around your toilet paper rolls, slide them out and make a nice tight knot in the middle, cut through all the loops (a lot of mine looked wonky, so I trimmed them up to make them more nicely domed), and tie them onto the pad.

A rug pad - Larger than needed so you can cut to size.
I ordered this one on Amazon for under $12.

I found it speediest to wind all my little donuts, then trim them all, then tie them onto the rug pad.

"Donuts"

Tying on the poms.

I made a simple knot, then finished any long pieces with a bow.
It'd be totally fine to just cut the extra length off too.

Starting to take shape! Tie them close so you don't have any gapping.

The result is a super plush, machine washable (I used washable acrylic yarn), and custom rug. The only disappointment from the project was I'd actually planned the rug to be much larger. When I ran out of yarn and went to get more... They no longer make the yarn I used. I'd bought it on sale months back, and now even Ebay can't help me. That's what I get for procrastinating on this project!

The originally desired length shown by the rug pad, measured to run the length of the crib.
It ended up about half this length, and more like a square than a rectangle.

I haven't quite decided on where it's going to land in the nursery itself, so I'll have to post an update photo when I actually get it in the room. For now - Puggle tested, puggle approved. And save my yarn-needs miscalculation, a totally easy and successful project!

Finished product! Puggle not included.