How to Make a Braided Rug for Your Dolls House

A 1:12 scale braided rug

If you can plait your hair and have ten minutes to spare, then you can make a braided rug for your dollshouse. That's how quick and easy it is!
   You will need:

• embroidery cotton
• tacky glue
• piece of felt
• scissors
• waxed paper
• something heavy e.g. a tin of baked beans!

I used an embroidery cotton that had variegated shades of blue in it. It sits in the bathroom of my Edwardian dolls house, beside the bath. You can choose a piece of felt for the rug's backing in a colour to tone in with the thread.

1. Separate the embroidery cotton into lengths, each piece of three strands. Cut three lengths 18 inches long.
2. Knot the three lengths together at one end and start plaiting.
3. Cut a circular piece of felt the size you want the finished rug to be.
4. Cover one side of the felt in tacky glue.
5. Starting from the centre, coil the plaited thread around and around, pressing it into the glue as you go making sure there are no gaps.
6. If the plait is too long, cut the end off, dip it in tacky glue to keep the strands together, and tuck it in to make a neat finish at the rug's edge.
7. Place the rug on a piece of waxed paper on a flat surface, cover it with another piece of waxed paper and put something heavy on top. This prevents the rug from curling up.
8. Leave to dry.

There - in the time it took for me to write this, I could have made a rug!