Since I have moved to India in 2013, it has given me more time to spend at our factory. This, and the ability to market unique products over the web, is allowing me and Homespice to push the boundaries of braided rugs like never before.

I have found these “hand-shaped, hand-pieced” braided rugs quite innovative, but getting something appealing was the challenge. One day at the factory I started inquiring about different shapes we could make, and using nature as our inspiration we started making flowers, leaves, stems and branches from the rug braids.

As soon as I saw one of the leaf-shaped braided pieces, the Eden rug came to my mind. I thought it would be pretty and we got started making the rug. We did hit some challenges, namely how to finish the top and the bottom of the rug and how to keep the leaves from flapping about. We started solving the problems one by one, first by attaching peach circles to the ends of the leaves and by making a special “base”from which the rug starts.

Next we tried to make a rectangular rug. The “Eden” concept didn’t quite translate outside of a runner so we started pondering again. It seemed easy to join 4 leaves, but the hard part was the center of the rug. What to do with the big empty space left open in the middle?

Again, being at the factory was great as it allowed us to try many different versions and finally we came up with our “two-color disc” which is a very special purpose-made disc. It is two braids sewn simultaneously to create a spiral effect. Somehow it seemed like the right solution and the “Meadow” rug was born. The “Serenity” rug followed soon after, and was also built one component at a time like a work of art.

 

The final piece of this project was now keeping the rugs from sliding on the floor. We had to make a piece that was not only beautiful, but something we could also live with (I have 3 small kids and I sell stuff that works my family life).

Simple as the idea was, we’ve never seen anyone do this before with rugs. We sewed rug pad to the back of each piece which makes the rug grip the floor like a magnet while at the same time not affecting the beauty of the top side.

I hope you will also like the fruit of my labor. It took a lot of time to come up with this and I am very happy with what we have created. I have the Eden Runner at the entrance to my house and it is gorgeous!

Seeing how Nature inspired me for the Botanica collection, I figured if I used geometric shapes, I should be able to use similar shapes and combinations to come up with something interesting. The first piece of that is the ‘Medallion’rug which is a simple collection of circles. More will be coming as I make my next trip to the factory.