last year I was at my favorite store, The Scrap Exchange, in Durham, North Carolina. They are an amazing creative reuse store, and every time I go in I am in my happy place. If you know of a creative reuse center in your state, you should definitely check it out. While I was there, I found a giant bin of Coffee sacks, all at 2 dollars a piece. There were so many varieties with different sacks, and I ended up buying 7. My lovely sister took a liking to one of them, and I decided to try making a rug for her new apartment.

Supplies

coffee sack

large needle (I used a cross stitch needle)

drawer grip liner (I got mine at a dollar store)

Step 1: Step 1: Seam Ripping the Sides

The sack was essentially one large rectangle, folded over and joined at the two long sides. I decided to rip these seams out, which I was able to do keeping to course burlap twine in one long piece. The "top " of the bag had a slit in it where the coffee beans had been taken out. I cut this off and made sure to do it in a straight line. cutting it straight is relatively easy because of the very visible woven texture. I cut mine to the length of the front of the bag.

Step 2: Step 2: Flattening the Burlap

When I got this sack, it was folded up in a bin. There is no way to iron it, because of what it is made of, so the best way to flatten it out is to lay it across a tile or linoleum floor, and spray it down with water. Use heavy coats, but not so much to saturate through the entire sack. After doing this, spray down a towel, and lay it across the top of the burlap.Let it dry like this, for a few hours. I had to do this a few times, because mine was so heavily creased.

Step 3: Step 3: Hemming the Edges

The "top" and "bottom" edges needed to be hemmed to avoid fraying. I did this by folding it under twice, or making a rolled hem. I stitched it using the twine I had pulled out of the side seams, and supplemented it by ripping more pieces of the twine out of the scraps of burlap that I had cut off the edges. The stitches blended in fairly well.

Step 4: Step 4: Adding the Liner

I picked up some drawer liner that was similar in color to the burlap, and measured out three pieces to cover the whole bottom of the rug. This was mainly to prevent the rug from slipping, and to give it a little more weight. At first I tried to use spray adhesive, but this became a sticky mess and ultimately didn't work. I decided to stitch the lining on to the burlap. I used my cross stitch needle and small basting stitches to secure it in the corners, and all across the liner in locations about four inches apart. This was fairly time consuming, but worked really well and blended in. After doing this, the idea of using hot glue also came to me, although I never tried doing it, it may be worth testing out if you really don't want to sew.