Friday, May 14, 2010

T-Shirt Yarn

  Yesterday was extremely dreary.  I love my rainy days but after about three days of nothing but downpours, haze, and constant drizzle, I was going a bit nuts.  So what better time to start one of the many summer projects?

  A while back I saw a post somewhere about cutting up old shirts into strips to make yarn.  I have a bunch of old colorful shirts - the kind you buy every color of at Target or American Eagle?  Yeah, you know the ones - and after years of constant wear and washing they're useless.  They're so colorful and summer-like, and even match my new sheers (yipee!), I couldn't resist.  Re-using over priced clothing (that would have been stuffed in a closet somewhere) for something awesome is pretty sweet too.

  Because the project is a gift I'll to keep details under wraps, BUT here are my first four balls of old (clean!) t-shirt yarn.


  It's an experiment, that's for sure.  I picked up a few tricks on how to cut the shirts in the most efficient way possible and some blogs suggest stretching the strips then winding it into a ball, which yeilds more yarn.  Found via Whip Up, Craft Passion has a great tutorial here.  I personally really like the ragged ends and uneven-ness of my way, which I assume will stretch naturally anyway.  Sorry, Grandma, I really don't like following in other knitter's footsteps (she loves me, but thinks I'm nuts for never committing to a pattern).

  More on this to come, along with my beaded scarf (still in progress) and messenger bag I made for Mother's Day.  Thank goodness it's summer!

1 comment:

Kel said...

AWESOME IDEA!!!! LOVE IT!!!!! Cute colors too!!!! Cannot wait to see it finished. :)