If you’ve ever wanted to make a rag rug but felt a bit daunted by the idea of drawing your own design onto hessian, then our pre-printed rag rug hessian is about to become your new best friend. At Ragged Life we’re all about making rag rugging fun, accessible, and stress-free, and our pre-printed hessian range does exactly that.
Whether you’re a complete beginner or a seasoned rag rugger, pre-printed hessian takes all the stress out of getting started – letting you dive straight into the creative, colourful part of rag rugging.
What is Pre-Printed Hessian?
For anyone new to rag rugging, let’s start at the beginning. Hessian (sometimes called burlap) is the traditional backing used to make rag rugs. It’s a sturdy woven fabric with little holes (ours are medium weave 10HPI – the “gold standard” for rag rugging) that allow you to pull strips of fabric through to create your rug. Hessian is most traditionally used as a rug backing for proggy, short shaggy and rug hooked / loopy rag rugs, but it can also be used as a base for locker hooked rugs.
Our pre-printed rag rug hessian is just like our usual pre-hemmed project hessian, except it comes ready-printed with a pattern. This means:
- No design stress – no need to think of a design and sketch it onto the hessian yourself.
- Easy visualisation – you can instantly see how your project will come together from our examples.
- Quick start – all our pre-printed hessians come pre-hemmed, so there’s no faffing with a sewing machine before you can get going.
Why We Love Pre-Printed Hessian
Here at Ragged Life HQ, we’ve seen just how much more confident students feel when they have a clear pattern to follow. With pre-printed hessian, you can take things one section at a time, which makes big projects so much more manageable.
The results are always unique, too. Even if 20 people are working on the same design, two rugs look completely different depending on the colours and fabrics chosen. And because rag rugging is so sustainable, you can make yours using anything from old clothes to textile offcuts – or, for a really smooth ride, our Ragged Life Blanket Yarn, which is already pre-cut into strips to save you yet more time and stress.
👉 Shop Ragged Life Blanket Yarn here.
Our Past Pre-Printed Designs
So far, we’ve launched two limited edition pre-printed hessian designs that have proved to be incredibly popular:
✨ Lantern Design – our very first pre-printed hessian, which featured a striking lantern pattern.
✨ Spiral Design – a bold, graphic swirl that’s perfect for playing with colour.
Both designs have inspired some absolutely gorgeous student projects, and we love seeing how creative you all get with them. Here are just a few student examples to show you the possibilities:
Introducing “Flower Power” – Our New Pre-Printed Hessian
This autumn, we’re taking pre-printed hessian to the next level with the launch of a whole new range of pre-printed hessian patterns. We’re starting out with our brand-new Flower Power design – a 140 x 100cm vintage embroidery-inspired floral pattern.
This cheerful, botanical design is perfect for both beginners and more advanced rag ruggers. You can work flower by flower, making it easy to break the project down into small, satisfying chunks.
Our sample above has been worked in the rug hooking / loopy rag rug technique (made using our Ragged Life Rug Hook), however the design would work equally as well in the short shaggy style. I built up the design in quite a odd order as I wasn’t sure how many 250g balls of woollen blanket yarn would be needed to fill the hessian and wanted to minimise wastage, but we’d recommend building up this design in the below order:
- Leaf Stems – approx 1 ball of dark green blanket yarn (I used colour “Twiggy”)
- Leaves – approx. 1 ball of lighter green blanket yarn (I used “New Beginning”)
- Large Flower Petal Outlines – approx. 2 balls of orange blanket yarn (I used “Tiger King”), two rows worked from the outline of the petals inwards.
- Flower Centres & Small Flower Petals – approx. 1 ball of pink blanket yarn (I used “Dusky Pink”) and 1 ball of yellow blanket yarn (I used “Mustard”).
- Large Flower Petal Inners – use the remains of the pink blanket yarn.
- Background – 4 balls of cream / tan blanket yarn (I used “Camel” but a good alternative would be “Fawn”). It took me just over 3 balls, so you’ll have some leftover. You don’t need to build the background up in a certain direction, but I prefer to outline all the shapes with one row of cream at a time until the bits of background begin to join. I then fill in each of the hessian gaps from the outside inwards.
👉 Browse Ragged Life Blanket Yarn here to get the perfect colours for your project.
The end result? A gorgeous, one-of-a-kind floral rug that looks beautiful in any room – and you’ll have the joy of knowing you made it yourself.
🌸 Flower Power is now open for pre-orders here. But be quick – as with all our limited edition pre-printed designs, once they’re gone, they’re gone!
Sneak Peek: What’s Next?
We don’t want to spoil all the surprises, but Flower Power is just the beginning of this season’s pre-printed hessian range. We’ve got a number of other exciting designs in the pipeline that we’ll be revealing very soon. Think bold shapes, playful patterns, and lots of opportunities to get creative with colour.
Our next design to hit the online shop is another embroidery-inspired design – “Wildflower Meadow”. It’s a little smaller than Flower Power – measuring a very manageable 110 x 80cm – making it perfect for a bathroom or bedroom…
Make sure you’re signed up to our Ragged Life Newsletter to be the first to hear when Wildflower Meadow pre-orders open and to stay tuned for other upcoming launches.
Final Thoughts
If you’ve been waiting for the perfect project to start rag rugging, our pre-printed rag rug hessian range is your answer. Stress-free, fun, and endlessly customisable – it’s the easiest way to dive into the wonderful world of rag rugging.
✨ Shop Flower Power Pre-Printed Hessian here.
Happy making!
Elspeth & the Ragged Life Team