A Rug Fit for a Super Hero

I found this 30 x 50 red zig zag rug at Home Goods for only $14.99. I knew it would look great in my son’s super hero bedroom. Red is becoming a prominent accent color in the room. Ever since I got his brother the sheep skin rug for his bedside, my oldest has been bugging me for a rug of his own.

The rug is great, but I wanted to change it up a bit.  I have always been inspired by these West Elm zig zag rugs with contrast ends. I wanted to get a similar look on the new red zig zag rug. I thought about painting the ends or adding a binding, but ultimately decided to do something a little simpler and less permanent.

With the help of some blanket stitch instructions on the Purl Soho, I added a unique contrast edge on the short ends of the rug.  I love the extra little pop of contrast color. The stitching also adds a nice texture.

I didn’t think regular yarn would be durable enough.  When I was at Home Depot, I stumbled on the rope and twine section.  I noticed this yellow Twisted Mason Line.  Thankfully I was planning to use yellow, because the only other color choice was hot pink.  The Mason Line is a thick strand of three twisted nylon strings.  I was able to use a large yarn needle to create the blanket stitch with the Mason Line.

I opted for the chevron blanket stitch pattern.  This pattern stood out more than a regular blanket stitch.  I used the hem on the end of the rug as a guide for the height of my stitches.  You can see here on the back the string is pulled through the rug just under the hemmed edge.

Wherever I had to end one string and start another to continue the blanket stitch, I knotted the two loose tails together.  The Mason Line is slippery and I noticed the knots were not holding.  I added a dot of hot glue to each knot to ensure they wouldn’t come undone, then trimmed the tails.  Even with the hot glue, if I ever wanted to remove the stitching to use this rug elsewhere, I could.

The finished edge adds so much interest to the rug.  The red and yellow rug looks perfect in my little super hero’s bedroom.  It adds a lot of energy to the space.  I put it right next to his bed, so he can step on it when he gets out of bed each morning.

Here are a few shots of the whole space.  He has his Superman pillow sham (from Pottery Barn Kids) on today, but he mixes it up with Spiderman sheets.  Mismatched super heroes is totally cool if you are a five year old boy.  You can learn more about the faux zinc letters spelling out his nickname here.

My son was really happy with his new rug…now he is bugging me to to get his new light fixture hung :)

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