I just got some free carpet and it is really pretty. I wanted to make area rugs out of it. Any ideas on how to finish the edges easily? Sewing is very difficult for my hands and I don't have a sewing machine that can do carpet.
By Roby from Norman, OK
How about looking in the hardware dept, for different colors of duct tape? I know it sounds weird, but it the tape matches or coordinates with the carpet, and is wide enough, you can apply it similar to wide blanket binding. Start from the back side, applying the tape, where the carpet edge meets the center line of the tape, that way you can fold the tape onto the top side. Work in small sections at a time, so the tape will lay flat. You can even cut shorter pieces of the tape to work with, since it isn't cloth or fabric, it won't fray. Hope you can find something that works for you, sounds like a great deal that you got!
In some areas, you can take your carpet piece and get them bound by a rug store; take a look in your local online yellow pages or paper yellow pages. Also, once not too long ago, either in Home Depot or Lowes, I saw that they had a stick on edging that looked line the edge stitch that you would get if you stitched a rug.
Remnant Carpet Store, 29th east of Penn, does edges for $1 a foot.
Hope that helps.
I am thinking using iron on binding you can get at a fabric store should work. If the carpet is acrylic you'll want to be careful to only allow the hot iron to touch the binding as you firmly iron/press it on the top edges of the carpet side and then flip the carpet to iron/press the other edge of the binding around to the jute underside the same way.
I got binding at a thrift store and hot glued it to my carpet. It looked great.
I was thinking of getting the binding tape to hot glue as well, but just got to tapped out after my new carpet was laid and my daughters college graduation. I got a wild idea that worked so brilliantly I had to share it. Cut the extra carpet the size you want it. Lay the carpet back side up and take a hot glue gun and run a half inch bead of hot glue all along the edges careful not to spill over just along the carpet backing is all you need.
done this before... using hot glue gun...CLEAR sticks...start under and bring just a little up around the edges to keep it from fraying. DONT glob it on and it wont be unsightly. cheap and easy fix and it will stand up to water. I did this in my patio which is screens only. the rug is wet ALOT due to sprinkler system and we have no problems.
my favorite tip so far but.. where can I find this (blanket satin like) trim for a tapestry. Visible side 1 inch, unfolded of course 2 inches give or take a millimetre). Thank you, Michele
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Does anyone have any suggestions on how to finish off the edges of cut pieces of carpet?
