WALK THE LINE

My kitchen floors got some new clothes! The side of the island that the sink is on is wider than the side that the refrigerator is on, so I have a hard time finding rugs for this spot. One that fits perfectly on the smaller side looks dinky on the other side, or a rug for the big side is too large for the smaller side. (I like to have a rug at the sink and at the refrigerator.) 

 

I've been looking for something new for this spot for a while.  Just as a reminder, this is what I had before.  I liked the size, but wasn't crazy about the more traditional look with my new curtains and breakfast nook.
 

So, walking through Marshall's the other day, these jumped into my cart! Not long after I saw that John & Sherry had tried one out, too, but they went another direction. I loved them for my space, though!

Young House Love

I brought them home to try them on for size. Good, but still a little small. 

The only other option in the store was a narrower, longer runner, but I wanted to keep the width of these. They did, however, have one more matching rug, so I decided to use the extra one to do a little rug surgery!

I laid the rugs out to eyeball a good length to get the most out of the extra rug.

Then, I cut along the stripes, leaving about ¾ inch for a seam allowance.  (I cut the hemmed edge off of the original rug, because the new piece would already be hemmed on the end.)  In hind sight, I probably should have left a little more. These unravel terribly when cut.

One of the rugs wasn't exactly the same width as another, so I stretched and pulled a little as I sewed and it came out ok. After stitching a straight seam to join the two, I went back and zig-zagged the edges to prevent unraveling.

After pressing the seams open and laying the new rug flat, I couldn't even tell where the seams are.

Can you?

I think this worked so well because of the striped pattern where the seam could become invisible. Now they're just the right size, and with a rug pad underneath are nice and secure in place. My only problem now is trying to keep stains off of those dog-gone white stripes! Why do spills ALWAYS land on the white...never the black? 

Say a little prayer for us...we're headed out for some almost-end-of-summer-fun today at a local amusement park.  With highs of 113 degrees forecasted. #yeswearecrazy