Cutting + Braiding + Sewing = Colorful Fun Rug

Carly's been asking for a t-shirt quilt since forever.  In December, I thought I would try to actually surprise her for Christmas.  I cut her designated shirts into squares but that's about as far as I got.  I cut the remaining pieces of the shirts into strips to make t-shirt yarn.  I pinned some things on Pinterest that I thought I'd make with the yarn, but you know how that goes.
 
Well, during the NFL playoffs & a couple of long road trips, I decided to braid the strips together to form one really long braid. So pretty and colorful!  (There are so many videos and instruction sites on Pinterest and Youtube on how to do this.)

So now that it's March Madness and our house is one basketball game after another, I decided to start sewing the braids into a rug.  I didn't want to lug the sewing machine down so I decided to hand sew.  Geez...when was the last time I've hand sewn anything?  But this is an easy project and perfection is not needed.

Who knew that "watching sports" translates to "craft time" in my dictionary?

Hints:
When sewing the braids together at the curves, but sure that the connecting braids are close but not too tight.  If you sew them too tight, it causes the "rug" to buckle.  You want it to lay flat to the ground.

BTW, Carly's birthday is in August, maybe I'll complete the t-shirt quilt by then?  If not, at least I can tell her the rug is made of her shirts.  LOL