Friday Finish: Penny Rug!

This week I noticed a few people working on penny rugs and the diamond shape, in particular. I have always wanted to do one and since I have a box of precut pennies, I thought I would give it a try.

I went with the colors I had, and thought brown, green and orange were perfect for a fall piece. It is small so it is perfect for an end table or a candle mat for one of my bureaus. I sewed the pennies first, then I laid them out in the diamond pattern and marked off the batting so that it lay in the middle of the outer pennies. I used a piece of tan cotton ticking and sewed the pennies' outer edges to that.

After I finished it, I sat it in walnut stain, overnight. It was still lighter than I wanted, so I sprayed some extra walnut ink on the front and especially on the ticking, since that was lighter. Now it is nice and dark and has an antique look. I am not sure if that shows, as well in the photo.

This is a fun lap project while I watch television and I think it would be fun to make some for presents, this year. This mat is 15" long and 10" wide in the middle.

You can see some of the dark staining in the photo, and in person, the ticking is a dark brown. The pennies were precut, but I had to trim down the middle two circles as I went, so they are not perfect circles, but I like my pennies to be a little wonky;) A great project for the weekend and a great way to use up small scraps of wool.