Edging carpet to make a rug

Tigsteroonie

Rather than pay a small fortune for a large rug for our lounge (for babba to roll around on, we have laminate beneath), today we purchased a carpet offcut for a bargain price.

Does anybody have any MSE/OS ideas on how we can neatly bind the edges to stop it fraying as we walk? Other than duct tape, which I found suggested on an American site I've seen "self-adhesive carpet binding tape" on eBay but, as there are no instructions for use in the description, I'm not sure whether that would serve the purpose.

Thanks for all ideas.

ormus

any carpet shop can bind the edges for you. for a small sum.

Tigsteroonie

ormus wrote: »

any carpet shop can bind the edges for you. for a small sum.

Define "a small sum", any idea of price? It's 7.4m perimeter. Would have to be less than £1.50/m to cost less than the offcut did!

Norma_Desmond

ormus wrote: »

any carpet shop can bind the edges for you. for a small sum.

It's actually called 'whipping' (!)
A carpet shop near me only charged about £5 for a very big 8' rug
a couple of years ago.

27col

I only got charged about £10 for 3 bits of carpet to be whipped. The total length must have been at least 5 mtr or more.

artha

When we had a good quality stairs and landing carpet fitted by Allied Carpets we had some quite big pieces left over that I thought would make complimentary rugs and runners for the wooden hall floor. Eventually discovered that, as stated above, whipping was the process needed to edge them. I enquired at Allied carpets after the fitting and they quoted about £4-£5 per linear metre. I still haven't got around to it as it seemed a bit pricey. Judging by the prices people above are quoting I think I need to try some smaller carpet outlets!

One other thing that concerns me is that the backing of this heavy duty carpet seems much "harder" and therefore possibly more abrasive than that normally seen on the underside of conventional rugs. Not sure whether this will be damaging to the surface of the wooden flooring on which it will be situated. Perhaps a softer backing might also have to be attached. Anyone got any thoughts or experiences?

Tigsteroonie

We only paid £11 for the offcut, hence why I'm asking for cheap ways of binding the edges - £5 for the entire rug would be acceptable (67p/m), £5/m wouldn't be! Plus I'd have to take it to a different shop from where I bought it.

But this is MSE - surely somebody has an alternative suggestion to the norm?

dander

I'd say depends what your motivation for keeping costs so low are and what you've got in the house already.

If you're just keeping the price low for the fun of it, I'd be inclined to just shop around for the best price you can get on proper whipping, it will look best and be most long lasting.

If you are doing it because you are really strapped for cash and simply have to keep costs low, my inclination would be that duct tape on the underside would be a good start for stabilising the base material then sewing bias binding round the very edge, but you'd probably need some kind of upholstery needle and a sturdy thread. BUT - if you had to go out and buy all that, you'd probably pay more than getting it whipped and it still wouldn't be as satisfactory.

You could make your own bias binding if you've got a suitable fabric and maybe if you made something quite deep you could make a feature of it and stitch it well inside the edge of the rug and maybe then you wouldn't have to worry about stabilising the base because your stitches would be far enough away from the edge to prevent it pulling away along the stitch line - but of course if you had to go out and buy the fabric, it would still probably cost more than the whipping!

carol49cat

Sorry, I'm lurking. According to Wickes, PVA adhesive can be used to stop carpets fraying but they don't go into details. "PVA building adhesive will also stop cut carpet edges from fraying, bond fabrics together and stick all sorts of arts and crafts materials. ..." There is also something advertised called Fray Stop but I don't think is for anything as hefty as carpet.

www.wickes.co.uk/content/ebiz/wickes/resources/images/.../210.pdf

dander

Fray stop won't do it - it's a very thin liquid and comes in tiny bottles! PVA sounds a much better idea.