Crochet as Mending Option

This area rug was, at one point,
about twice as long as it is
currently.

Even though slow fashion October is finished, I am still following several new-to-me people on social media, a few who do a fair amount of visible mending on clothing. I can't say I've done all that much visible mending on my clothes (although I have done some), I absolutely mend lots of things around my living space.

I have several area rugs, all of which I love. Some of them I've made, others were bought many, many years ago. Made of woven cotton, the commercially purchased rugs have traveled with me from one living space and state to another. All of them are washable, which make them perfect for my purposes. I love them underfoot, and cannot imagine my home without them.

One such woven cotton rug has really taken a beating. In fact, a few years ago I actually took shears to one end of this rug and chopped off a fair amount that had started to unravel. As you can see below, I took some white kitchen cotton I had on hand at the time, and performed a little quick single crochet Rx to the edge I sheared off:

See that neat single crochet edge? Compliments of my crochet
hook and some worsted weight kitchen cotton.

Most of that edge has remained in tact, but one corner has obstinately started to unravel once more. I didn't want to perform yet another chopping operation (!), so I decided to take a lesson from my visible mending brethren and fix it, to the best of my ability, using yarn I had on hand and my crochet hook. Here's a visual record of my mending effort:

So here is the offending corner in
its unraveled state.

Here are the crochet hooks I brought out for the fix, as well as bits and
bob of cotton in various shades of white and cream, as well as some
cream colored wool/acrylic blend. I decided on the white cotton and
my size I hook. I rejected the cream wool/acrylic - wrong color,
texture and feel for this rug.

The first thing I did was work a row of surface slip stitch up the edge of
the rug, around the loose woven pieces, to create a new edge.

Then I worked another surface slip
stitch row along the inside edge of the
unraveled area to aid in stopping
future unraveling.

I then worked one more row of surface slip stitch between the two
rows on each edge of the unraveling area. I then knotted several
pieces of cotton along the outer edge to actually aid in aesthetics

I then wove in all my ends (at top and bottom of mend area).

Here's a shot of the entire rug,
with the mended corner at top right.

And here's a close-up of the mended
corner. While certainly not perfect, it
actually is not only neat and tidy,
it definitely adds a different character
to the rug.