The DIY Library Rug.

You're not going to believe this.

The DIY library rug?  'Member?  I had an idea a while back.  Jumped in with no plan.  Then threw in the towel.  Or, opted to leave it alone.

Mmm.  Bath rug.  Sad.

Well.  Guess what?  It's done.

Whaaaaaaaaat?!,  you're asking.

Are you confused?  Me too.

It was a confluence of several crazy moments, not gonna lie.  Well, ok, maybe crazy is a wee exaggeration but I totally was not expecting, well, yeah, this all blew up wildly out of nowhere.

So I'm at the hugely insanely mammothly large fabric store over there in Pilsen.  The one with seemingly two hundred names but it goes by either LZ Fabrics or Textile Discount Outlet mostly.  This fabric store is not for the faint of heart.

One (tidier) aisle of oh, five trillion.

If you ain't from around these here parts, you can check out this video, holy cow.  Honestly?  It barely gives a glimpse of what this store is about.

Anywhooo....

So right, I'm over there to find some fabric for the jumbo curtain I'm making.  The remnant I purchased is a hair too short, and will be shorter when hemmed, so I needed filler fabric.  Project beginnings dependent on fabric purchase.

After digging in some boxes on the first floor and locating a wad that's perfect for a curtain in the hall bedroom and a potential filler, I start wandering.  You really have to be in a specific state of mind to peruse here.  I was close but not quite, hence some aimless meandering happened.

Upstairs I went and immediately found a white for the filler.  Sweet!

Rational Brain:  "Ok, let's go, we gotta get outta here before we spend too much."

Brain on Fabric:  "But!  But!  C'mon, what's the harm in poking around?"

Rational Brain:  "No.  Now.  Let's go."

Brain on Fabric:  "Well, we have to go back through an aisle to get to the stairs anyway...ooooh, what's..."

Rational Brain:  "You suck."

All three of us end up walking through an aisle of boxes overflowing with remnants.  I "accidentally" discover a fabric that's a version of one of our couch pillows, different color.  Hem, haw, hem, haw.

Rational Brain:  "Stop it.  Move along."

Brain on Fabric:  "Ugh.  Fine.  You suck."

Two boxes later I find another color of that fabric, defy Rational Brain, add to handful.  Then what do I see there, what is...omg...this glorious mound of fuzzy, holy...omg, what do my eyes behold?!?!  Omg.  Not even unraveling it and before Rational Brain could pipe up, it's in my hot little hands and I'm running for the stairs.

"It's perfect for the DIY library rug!!!," Brain on Fabric is screaming at Rational Brain who's trying to catch up.  "You cannot stop meeeeeeeeeeee!!!"

See, here's the thing about that library, it doesn't get a whole heck of a lot of use (read: none) so using fabric for the rug is, well, perfect!

Brain on Fabric kicks Rational Brain out of the cutting table line to make planning and scheming space for the rug creation.

Once home, I hurriedly dashed upstairs, grabbed rug-in-progress and breathlessly snipped all the bath rug looking pom poms off.  Like a crazed fiend, I zipped down to the first floor to grab the oh-so-glorious, my new Favoritest Favorite Fabric in the Whole Wide World Favorite, and giddily skipped to the basement.

Now for the first time I see the swath of furry happiness in all it's glory laid out on the floor.  Jaw drop.  Eyes flutter.  I want to roll around in it.  Cuddle with it.  Savor the fluffy.  But no!  Task at hand.

My fabric store haul.  All that for $30.

Then I ran into a problem.

Well, not so much a problem per se.

Note his crossed front feeties -- it's so cute, he does it all the time.

More like a larger, fluffier roadblock.

And then that happened.

So I had to wait.  Eventually fluffier Finn wandered off to bark at whatever.

I stretched out the non-slip whoo-ha onto the back side of the fabric then trimmed it smaller so as to salvage as much valuable floofy favorite fabric as possible to make however many heavenly pillows I can possibly squeak out of the leftovers.

Ran upstairs to the handy dandy sewing kit box I've had since, oh, as a kid, which would mean forever.  Grabbed a needle and some thread.

Maniacally I sped downstairs.  I tacked the non-slip carpet thingie to the fabric using one stitch plus a few knots in several places.  A pair of sharp scissors, snip snip, cutting the fabric a bit wide as I noted the edges liked to curl.

Snatched the whole mess up and hustled my happy butt up to the library.  Move move move furniture, spread the new rug, move move move furniture back.  Grin.

Bam.  In fifteen minutes I had a finished library rug.  Done.  Finished.  Done.

Ha ha, Rational Brain.  Nah nah.

My total cost?  Somewhere in the neighborhood of $15.00.  I can't remember how much the rug pad was, though I vaguely sense it was on sale for less than $8 or so.

So end result here:  awesome finished rug on the cheap created in a flash.  Can't beat that!  Check and mark.  Woo hoo!

Sweet.  It's additional texture in the room along with the nubbly pallet wood blinds and the swanky light fixture.  Looks good with the chair.  Nifty with the happy flowery pillow (oh, theme.  Finn laying on fabric.  Huh.)!  Looks most fantastic with my grandparent's table.  Oh yes.

And do not think for one silly second that Brain on Fabric isn't already vying to go back to the store and hunt for more fluffy floofy goodness.

(Anyone need a mountain of gray pom poms?)