How to make shaggy mats at home

In the previous post on Making Shaggy Mats for Commercial Purposes we discussed the benefits of learning how to make shaggy mats and the materials needed as well as where they can be found.

In this post, we show you, step by step, how to make the shaggy mats. It is very easy, no prior knowledge needed. All you need is determination, focus and time to learn.

Step 1:- Gather all your materials  (Tapestry, cutting wood, threads, scissors, crotchets and mark-pen)


Step 2:- Cut out all the rough edges of the tapestry. This makes it easier for you to bind the tapestry at the edges and make it stronger to avoid easy wearing-out during cleaning and as it gets old.

 


Step 3:- Do binding all round the tapestry. This should go all round. When binding, do not knit on the first hole but the second one. If you focus on the first hole, the thread might come out easily.

Step 4:- Design the Tapestry as you wish. You can either draw a shape, picture, or anything you wish for it to look like. Words can also be part of your design. The lines border the different regions you will knit using different threads in order to bring out the words or designs. For example, if the main color is green and you have drawn a flower, the flower could take up a different color like red or white or any other of your choice. This way, it shall be visible.

Step 5: -Cut out the thread to desirable pieces using scissors and the cutting wood. Take out the two edges of the thread, (the inner one and the outer one as shown in the video) tie round the cutting wood from one end to the other and to hold the threads tightly together, tie twice or thrice across as shown. Cut through on both end. Do this repeatedly for the entire thread and for the others until the mat is complete

Step 6:- Take a piece at a time and knit. The crotchet with hook is better and faster to allow you tie the thread pieces on the tapestry one by one. In order to make a nicely looking mat, when you start knitting upwards, do not change the pattern and start proceeding across. This will ruin the pattern and it will look unpresentable when you finish.

The back part of a well knit mat should look like image A. When you confuse the pattern and move across while you started knitting in a different pattern, it will appear as shown in image B. One or two threads will not show but they will if the number increases and you will end up consuming more thread than needed.

Image A

Image B

 

If you do everything as shown, the final product should be a smart, comfortable and nicely knit shaggy mat.