If your idea of a weekend project has run out of road after one too many café visits, there is a new option in the Chandigarh Tricity. Go Rug Yourself, a tufting studio in Mohali, invites you to design and make your own rug with a tufting gun. You need no experience, and you leave with something you made yourself.
What Is Tufting?
Tufting is a contemporary textile craft that has taken off on social media, and it is easy to see why. A handheld tufting gun punches yarn into a stretched fabric base to build textured designs. Think of a sewing machine and a paintbrush combined. You trace a design onto the fabric, then fill it in with colour, row by row, watching it take shape.
The appeal goes beyond the finished product. The gun’s steady rhythm and the slow filling-in of colour are oddly calming. A Chennai report on the trend described tufting as a way to tap into the need for mindful creation, and many visitors treat it as a creative escape.
The Mohali Studio
Go Rug Yourself’s Mohali branch bills itself as one of India’s largest tufting studios. The brand also runs studios in Delhi’s Lajpat Nagar and in Chennai’s Kottivakkam, which suggests the idea has caught on beyond any single city.
The Mohali listing promises a hands-on crafting session where you design, tuft and create your own quirky rug. Sessions run for three hours, so you have time to settle in, get comfortable with the gun and finish a real piece rather than a half-done sample. According to the event listing, the studio is open daily from 11:00 AM to 7:00 PM, so you can pick a slot that fits your week instead of waiting for a particular weekend.
What It Costs and Who Can Come
The workshop is also open to a wide range of people. The listing says entry is allowed for ages 8 and above, and describes the session as kid friendly. Pets are not allowed. The studio offers free water stations and washrooms, and the session is indoors with seated and standing options. The activity is run in English, Hindi, Hinglish and Punjabi, which suits the mixed-language crowd of the tricity.
Who It Suits
The studio pitches the experience to creative souls, DIY lovers, date days, art therapy and team bonding. In practice, several kinds of visitors will get the most out of it:
Couples. In Chennai, the couple’s workshop is reported to be the most popular option, and pairs can create separate designs or collaborate on a single rug. It makes a good date because you build something together instead of sitting across a table. Check with the Mohali studio whether it offers the same format.
Friends and birthday groups. The studio says it hosts birthday parties as well as private and corporate events. A three-hour shared project gives a group something to do, and everyone leaves with their own piece.
Teams. Corporate groups in the tricity often look for outings that don’t involve a conference room. A craft session gets people working with their hands, talking and comparing designs, which tends to loosen up a group.
Complete beginners. The studio doesn’t present this as a class for people who already know how to do it. Anyone curious about a new craft can come and try.
Tips for Your First Session
First-time tufters tend to make a few predictable mistakes, and a little planning helps.
Keep your design simple. Bold shapes with clear outlines and a small colour palette look striking and are far easier to execute than intricate detail. A smiley, a flower, an abstract blob or your initials will all work well.
Think about colour before you arrive. Yarn colours look different side by side than they do in your head, so bring a rough idea but stay flexible once you see the options.
Don’t rush. The three-hour window is generous, and tufting rewards a steady hand. Fill in edges first and keep your lines tidy, and the whole piece will look more polished.
Finally, go in expecting a few wobbly lines. A handmade rug is meant to look handmade, and the small imperfections are part of its charm.
Beyond the Single Workshop
If one session gets you hooked, the brand offers more. At its Chennai studio, it runs structured boot camps for both children and adults. The children’s summer boot camp for ages 8 to 12 runs over five days and covers every step, from design selection and tracing to tufting, glueing, cutting and finishing. Adults can take a five-day course that goes through the process in depth. Ask the Mohali team whether similar programmes are planned locally.
