Hula Hoop Rug - FAIL

Have you heard about the Hula Hoop Rug craft idea? If not, check it out here or you won't be able to fully appreciate how beautiful my effort turns out.

Here is the picture that fired my imagination...

So, I saw this and thought it was just oh, so cute! The bright colors are appealing. The easy-ness of the project was appealing. And the hula hoop idea was cool. I didn't know where I would actually put a hula hoop rug but hey, why not do it first and then find a place?

I got the hula hoop at Wal-Mart for $5. Geez, that seems expensive for a toy that's been around since my mom was a teenager! I picked the largest one they had and turned around to see two customers in those motorized wheelchairs, waiting to get by me in the aisle. I said "excuse me, I'm sorry", and stepped aside but they didn't move. They sat there in their chairs, chuckling, and said that they were actually waiting to see me try the hula hoop out and see if it actually worked. What the....? Really? I'm a mid-30's mother of three, with post-pregnancy pounds happily clinging to my body. I don't hula hoop. But my sister standing beside them smiled innocently, and with a twinkle in her eye added her voice to theirs; "yes SoShawna, why don't you see if it works?" What could I do? Turn down two handicapped older people who were waiting for a show? Sigh. So of course I had to hope the security camera people were watching another department of the store and I stepped into the hula. And wouldn't you know it, I'm not a hula hooper person. At all. But twirling ones hips with abandonment in the middle of store is actually a pretty liberating sensation. With the customers cheering, we moved along.

I went to a rummage sale the next weekend and asked for a bag of t-shirts for a craft project. They had me come back at the end of the sale and said I could take any that I liked for free since they were donating everything to Goodwill anyway. Score! I picked all the brightest colors and some neutral ones as well and filled a garbage bag full. Then it was time to reclaim my hula hoop from the kids, who were fighting over it anyway. It's interesting to take a toy away from your little kids, telling them; "No! This is Mommy's toy!".

Emma patiently sitting by Mommy's Hoop so you can see how big it is.

My t-shirts from the rummage sale.

Successfully recruiting my sister into my nifty craft project, I put her to work sorting the colors. I thought it would be appropriate to do autumn colors, seeing as how it's almost Fall. As if we have seasons in Hawaii, which we don't, but since it's September I can pretend that we have seasons.

I told her to get all the colors that we might see in leaves fallen from the trees in the fall.

Then I started with the t-shirt for the 'warp'. And no, I'm not such a good weaver person that I knew what 'warp' was! According to the instructions on this website, the warp are the loops that will provide the skeleton of the rug. Anyway, I picked the largest (3XL) t-shirt because I thought that since my hula hoop was so big, I needed the biggest warp loops.

I cut the bottom hem off and gave it to my son to play with. He pretended it was a snake.

Then started cutting the strips off, about every inch or so, across the bottom of the t-shirt. This makes your loops.

You need 11 loops so here are mine. Luckily I have a Kindergartner who likes to practice his counting and he made sure I actually had 11.

Uh oh. First 'fail'. The 3XL shirt loops were WAY too big for the hula hoop! They were not tight at all around the hoop, as my Kindergartener demonstrates here...

Oh well. I cut up the rest of the brown 3XL shirt anyway, because it was part of my entire color palette for the rug. Here are all of the shirts, nicely cut into loops. Brown, orange, red, green, & yellow. Lovely, yes?

So, back to the warp. Next choice was the bright orange from a shirt that was only XL. Perfect. 

Back to the 11 loops...

 All 11 loops carefully strung onto the hoop as my entire 'warp'. I don't know if that's the right usage of the word 'warp' but it makes sense to me. The loops were evenly spaced and then 2 loops are slid together to make the weaving even. I also don't know why this is important but apparently it is. Read the original site if you want an explanation. Remember that the title of this blog post has the word 'Fail' in it....

After the warp was in place, I started weaving the 'weft'. Arrrgggg another weird weaving word that I've never heard in my entire life! Basically the weft are the loops that are woven around the skeleton of the rug. You loop the first loop by...you know...attaching it to one of the skeleton spokes and running it through itself, like when you attach a rubber band to something. I can't explain it any further than that, either you get it or you don't. 

I started weaving the red loops around the spokes but then I hated the way it looked in the middle, with the orange blob where all the spokes cross each other. 

So yeah, my sister and I pulled all the red loops out...

 

...and decided to start with the orange loops, so the entire center would be orange and blended better. If you haven't figured it out yet, you go around all of the spokes in an over/under/repeat pattern, treating all the loops as a single unit at first.

Second 'fail': we pushed and pulled everything together TIGHTLY. The original instructions say to weave firmly but not tightly...something along those lines. Obviously my sister and I tend to do things the way it makes sense to us, and later we realize that perhaps we were wrong...

But...still blissfully unaware that I was doing things too tightly, I went around the center 4 times with each color, attached additional loops of color as needed. This was actually pretty fun and relaxing...to do something pretty mindless as this as everyone chatted all around. 

Oh yes, when the circle is about 8 inches across, you start weaving in and out of each spoke as two individual strands instead of the single unit like you were in the beginning. 

When I reached the end of my 5 colors, I had to stop and use crayons to sort of visualize how I wanted the pattern to continue....repeat the pattern (orange/green/yellow/red/brown), or reverse it so it would begin & end with the orange. I decided on the latter. 

Luckily I also have a 9-month old who is an expert weaver. She is probably a lot better than me and could have done a much better job. I should have let her do the whole thing.

Finally done, about 5-6 inches from the edge of the hula hoop, I cut the last loop and tied it into place.

Then cut all the spokes from the hoop and...

...tie into tight knots.

And THEN the laughing can begin. What the...

Is it a weird sombrero?

All that tight weaving made it bumpy and lumpy and....small.

Or it could be a hat with nice dangling strings...all the better to keep the flies away from your face! Cool!

I could add some handles, maybe, and have a clutch?

Finally, my best idea...take my large wooden bread bowl...

...and line it! (Ended up cutting off the tassels later). 

The next night I had a dinner party, and served my cornbread rolls in this bright bowl. It got compliments and caused my sister and I to exchange happy chuckles. 

So, if you try to do this craft, be sure and follow the instructions better than I did. But hopefully you'll have just as much fun doing it...from start to finish...as I did! Just shake your hips with joy when you make sure your hula hoop works, pick colors that make you smile, follow instructions, let your kids help, and laugh at the result. No matter how it turns out, if you laugh then it's a success.

Hmmm...I think my next project will be something more like this....how could I possibly mess it up?