Toothbrush rugs: Sequencing with blue jeans, extending a color, and a fun bit of folk art.

I've been very busy lately working on a rug for my best [college] friend's wedding, which is a week and 3 hours from right now. I'm almost done with it.

He gave me his old jeans, which I thought was fitting- out with the old ratty life, in with the new life.

I separated them into darker and lighter blue. Generally this corresponded to wear/age, but not always. My pattern (after a colorful center I'll explain in a post when the rug is done) was to alternate darker and lighter strips. This technique my mother calls "sequencing" and I like the term. I'll finish it off in a really stunning way, but again, I'll wait to talk about that for when the rug is done.

Here is a close up of the rug, showing the effect of alternating the lighter and darker strips.

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This shows you very clearly the two different "blues" which went into this rug. I GENERALLY cut the lighter blue wider because it was thinner and more worn.

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This was a Juniors 7 which I had to cut up to add to the darker more intense mat'l to get the rug large enough.

When I do this, I start blending in the strips of the new clothing source before I've run out of the old, so there's no jarring demarcation, and the rug evolves organically and naturally.