19 May 75

Recycle Tutorial – Making Of T-Shirt Yarn

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Another tutorial to help save our Mother Earth by turning unwanted items into something useful. This is the yarn ball I made out of an old T-shirt which I have been wearing for 10 years day-in day-out, wash-in wash-out. It finally broke down and tore at the collar and sleeves. Waste not, want not, I decided to recycle it.

In this tutorial, you will need:
1. T-shirts (those without side-seam)
2. A pair of sharp scissors


Place the T-shirt flat on the floor or working table.

tshirtyarn_making1
We only need the bottom-halve portion of the T-shirt. Cut horizontally from sleeve to sleeve as shown above. Cut away the end border of the T-shirt too. This useful” portion must be plain and free from printing, embroidery and any joints or seams. Any motifs will be too hard for the T-shirt to turn into tubular yarn.

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Fold the T-shirt from side to side, leaving an inch allowance as shown.
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Cut into strips as shown, remember not to cut the 1 inch allowance. Leave it there as we are going to use this to form a continuous strip.
The width of the strip will determine the thickness of your yarn, but the minimum is 15mm, anything less than this, the process will fail. The width shown here is 15mm.
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Finish cutting the T-shirt from top to bottom evenly.
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Unfold the 1 inch allowance and it will look as shown below.
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The next process is to make a slant cut from strip 1 to strip 2, strip 2 to strip 3 and so on in order to create a continuous strip for the whole T-shirt.
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I purposely leave the first strip uncut until I have finished all. No catch, just my preference to show you better how the slanting looks like.
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Now, I have a loooooooong strip of continuous T-shirt yarn waiting for the next process.
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Next is to turn the strip into a tubular yarn. All you need to do is tug the strip as shown below. Rememeber I told you that the minimum width of the strip is 15mm? The secret is…. if you have anything narrower than this, it will break once you pull.
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See, the strip will curl and form a tubular shape after the tug. This process will lengthen the yarn too, which is good, so you have more yarn to work on your project.
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….tug….
….tug….
….tug….

The strip has now turned into tubular yarn, from Fettuccine to Spaghetti ***wink***. You can roll your yarn into ball and it is ready for your next project.
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HAPPY YARNING!!!
A preview of what is coming up next!!!!
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I have finished making the drawstring bag as shown above. Please click here to have a look and you can download the simple pattern I created.

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75 comments... read them below or add one

  1. cri says:August 8, 2011 at 10:45 pm

    Hi,
    I’ve been looking a lot at your blog a lot recently, I really like what you do! Very pretty and very nicely presented. Thanks a lot for your ideas and patterns =)
    Best wishes,

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    Reply
  2. SewDanish says:September 2, 2011 at 2:57 am

    Great tutorial. Never thought of cutting the fabric in this way. Very clever. Thanks for sharing :-)
    Birgitte

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    Reply
  3. homemoma says:September 7, 2011 at 4:20 am

    i was so happy to see the tutorial and then bummed, here they do not sell seamless t-shirts. all have seams on the sides :(

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  4. mildred lane says:October 22, 2011 at 2:37 am

    sorry to beo so dumb but what is 15mm in inches??? Can’t wait to get started….

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  5. AlikiBags says:October 23, 2011 at 5:07 am

    Hi again,
    This has been such an inspiration for me, thanks again ! I’m still collecting Tshirts, which I buy at my local Oxfam charity shop. Only disappointing and difficult thing is that they ALL have side seams…..bit of a challenge !
    Would LOVE to show off my first finished basket bag but do not know how to go about it. Help!?
    Kiki x

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    • Craft Passion says:October 23, 2011 at 7:52 am

      I am still collecting too, it is the same as the no-seam T-shirt cant be found in my country.
      At this point of time until I have the community site set up, please upload it to facebook page if you have an account. Otherwise, will have to wait until I have the community site set up probably end of this year or probably early next year.

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      • AlikiBags says:October 23, 2011 at 3:55 pm

        Great !
        Thanks for the info and good luck with the work on the community site ! Can’t wait for that because it will be yet another inspiration for my creative ‘Bag Lady’ life, just like this wonderful blog has been.
        Kiki x

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        Reply

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  7. Holly says:December 30, 2011 at 7:29 am

    You. are. out. of. control. LOVE this site!!!! I found your site linked on another blog when I was searching for “old sheets for handkerchiefs”:-) That got me to your awesome woven rug. I can’t WAIT to find enough sheets at Goodwill to make that one. I have been wanting an easy doable rug pattern made from old scrap for the LONGEST time. I hate the way you buy rugs from the store, and they have that horrible plasticky backing that always comes apart in the washer/dryer…. And now this coolest t-shirt project! THANK YOU for this website:)

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  8. Luiza says:January 5, 2012 at 3:56 pm

    Thank you! I appreciate your tutorial. Easy to follow and it’s fun to end up with a ball of yarn in your hands. :-)

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    Reply
  9. Jess says:January 6, 2012 at 8:04 pm

    This is probably the coolest idea ever! I am truly obsessed with your site!!!!

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    Reply
  10. Val Swanson says:January 16, 2012 at 11:02 am

    ingenious way to cut ONE long strip with NO seams!!!!! LOVE IT!!

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    Reply
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