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Recycle Tutorial – Making Of T-Shirt Yarn
May 19, 2009 by Craft Passion
in Recycle Craft, Tutorial
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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.
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.
Fold the T-shirt from side to side, leaving an inch allowance as shown.
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.
Finish cutting the T-shirt from top to bottom evenly.
Unfold the 1 inch allowance and it will look as shown below.
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.
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.
Now, I have a loooooooong strip of continuous T-shirt yarn waiting for the next process.
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.
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.
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.
HAPPY YARNING!!!
A preview of what is coming up next!!!!
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.
Related posts:
Older Post : Amigurumi – Owl
Now that is totally cool…
Stay Cozy, Carrie
This is great- I’m going to try it next time I have an old tee to get rid of. Thanks!
It never come across my mind that an old T-shirt can be recycled into another interesting items. You really have a “green” mind!
What size hook do you use?
Clever Idea and good instructions. Will have to try it. /;)
This is so cool! I can’t wait to go cut up a T-shirt! I’m passing this along to my buds. Thanks a ton. ckb
Please try it out and if you have any question please feel free to ask me.
Latinboop – I am using hook size 8/0.
There will be a free pattern coming up next, so stay tune.
Hi! I like your article and I would like very much to read some more information on this issue. Will you post some more?
Hi Garykp,
First of all I would like to thank you for leaving a comment here. I am taking feedback and comment very seriously as it is very important to keep on improving the quality of Craftpassion.com.
Referring to your question, can you please tell me what exactly you want to know more? I need to know so that I can create more post related to it, eg. recycle projects.
Thank you and please do come back for my crafts updates.
I love this idea! Will be going through my closet to see if I have any seamless T-shirts.
I placed a link to this page on my free Arts and Crafts Directory and with your permission I would love to include a picture. For now, I’ve included a placeholder image.
Please let me know if I have your permission and I will add a picture.
Regards,
Michele
Thanks for asking. Go ahead and put a photo in your blog as long as you are linking it to this post.
Hello! Thanks for the post. It is really amazing! I will definitely share it with my friends.
HI, I’m very interested in crafting with recycled materials and just loved this idea of turning old T-shirts into yarn! I just had one problem: Brazilian T-shirts have seams on the side so they tore apart when I cut the strips! I tied knots from strip to strip because I was too lazy to use the glue (as you suggested in your tutorial for the drawstring bag…) I might then crochet a bag out of it, this way I can hide the knots under the lining! Next time I’m thinking about cutting the two parts (front and back) separately, this way I’ll have to tie only one knot.
Anyways, thanks for posting this tutorial and as soon as I crochet something out of my recycled yarn I’ll let you know!
Great idea! Thanks for sharing the step-by-step photos, which help a lot.
Wowwww! You are so crafty and earth friendly. I never thought of doing this. I need to find an old T-shirt and try this. Thanks so much for sharing your talent!
What a brilliant idea! I’m doing an article on usual yarns for a textile magazine and I’m going to include a link to this page so our readers can see how cool it is!
”’HOOOOOOOOO FABULOSO BOLSO TE FELICITO..MENTE CREATIVA.ESPERO VER MAAAaaaaaaaaaa.saludos
Hi…. is there a video of this? call me an idiot haha i do but I kinda got lost when i got to the part where it was time to open thr inch fold and cut the strips…. I got tangled and messed up please help