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Media Press Recycle Tutorial – Making Of T-Shirt Yarn
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.
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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.
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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
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This is great! I love to knit, crochet, weave and braid….and I have a ton of old t’s….thank you!
This idea is so fabulous, that I just made my first t-shirt ball.
This si the best thing I’ve run across today. I have so many shirts that have been worn to death but I don’t just want to throw out. Now to just wonder what to make!!
I just cut up my first shirt. The new ‘yarn’ looks great. I’m looking for my crochet needle now…
very beautiful, recycling of old T-shirt.
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Wow, amazing!
I’ll try, of course.
Thank you!
Awesome! Made two balls of t-shirt yarn! The first is much smaller, because I made plenty of mistakes trying to figure out the slant cut lol.
And besides that completely wasted one shirt because I forgot that you can’t use tee’s with side seams! Ah well, I’ll find some other craft for it!
Hope to hear from you soon and see what you did with the T-shirt yarn
this tutorial is really fantastic, I love to crochet and definitely need to reuse old t-shirts that no-one would wear, thank you for the idea
You are welcome, Izabela!!!!
This is so awesome! My boyfriend is sweet enough to let me use one of his old shirts to try this out on.
I hit a few snags, but, I think I will do it better next time. Thanks for sharing this with us 
awesome… I’ve been wanting to use my old t-shirts but didn’t know how to go about it… thanks for sharing this technique in such a simple way.
I have to say, as soon as I saw this I went and found a t-shirt to cut up. It is hard to find shirts that don’t have side seams, if not then they have silly logos, etc on them that mess with the roping. I now need to learn how to crochet! I have one rope ball and am in the process of trying more, I did mess up with the slant cuts but want to practice it somemore. Now, what can we do with the tops of all the shirts we cut up? : )
Good try!!! Practice makes perfect
I saved the top part of the T for my sewing project. They are perfect for embellishment, and they can be put together and make a quilt blanket
I make them into cloths for my husband, he likes to polish up his car. I use them for dustrags etc.
Glad to know that, Angela
I just did some house keeping in my craft room and found some more no-sideseam T-shirts. Going to wash them, make them into T-shirt yarn, and this time I am going to crochet them into floor rug
this is great – I’m linking to your tutorial if that’s okay. If it’s not okay let me know and I will remove it – but come on over to my site and see what i made with it!
thanks!
I tired this before from a different site and it was not so easy and the results were not good. This way was GREAT. I got 42 yards out of one shirt. took less than 15 minutes. I used the rotor cutter and did not go all the way to one edge. I have about 30 shirts from my boys that I am going to make a quilt out of just the logos. Now I have a good use for all the left over bottoms. And I love cotton yarn, Thank you.
Glad to know that!!!! Thanks, Kris
Please, keep up the awesome work and continue to post topics like this. I am old fan of your page!
Love this idea! Thanks for sharing. I was given a HUGE trashbag of old T’s today and can’t wait to make them into yarn. I have a question tho… what happens if you use T’s with side seams? Is it still possible, but just looks messy where the seams are? Or isn’t it possible? I guess I could try one and see, but thought I’d ask if you have firsthand knowledge of the results. Thanks!
Hi! As a Navy wife, my hubby has a lot of old undershirts that are worn and dingy from being on an aircraft carrier (the laundry system is not the best..) so this will be a great project to recycle all those shirts instead of throwing them out, and I have also passed it along to all my Navy wife friends so that they can try it out, or give me shirts.
I’ll be checking back often for more awesome projects!!
It took me about 3 of my salvation 29 cent army shirts to figure out to do this. Now I’m sooooooooooooooo excited and have YOU to thank!! Now I don’t want to go to work tomorrow. I want to stay home and make Tshirt yarn LOL. Thank you so much for sharing your gift with people like me.
Hi, thanks for your tutorial. I used it to make my first ball of tarn and I made a trivet with it which I will give to my sister for her birthday.
This is fantastic!
I just made some yarn from an old t-shirt…and now it’s a skinny scarf! 
hey there, love this blog! i would love to try this but i get lost at the 1 inch allowance part and the cut across section. is there a video?? thx
Sorry, I don’t have any video yet for this tutorial.
After you have finished cutting all the parallel way with the 1″ allowance, just cut across slantly from strip 1 to strip 2 in order to make it the strip continuous.
I love your tutorial. I linked to it in a recent post on my blog, you can look at it here http://www.makinmesses.com/2011/03/rag-rug/. Thanks again for the tutorial.
Just found this absolutely brilliant and so well presented tutorial…. THANK YOU!
I already know a friend who will also be really pleased about the idea.
Saving Tshirts from landfill is such a good idea. My only problem so far is that most T’s seem to have sideseams….. must put my thinking cap on for that one….
Another brilliant thing, isn’t the tutorial by the rare male crafters? x
I know you posted this over a year ago, but it’s so cool!!!
My cousin, WEndy, gave me this link (wendyandadam.blogspot.com) since I saw a belt she made from recycled tshirts. I have a HUGE stack right now (probably at least 50 shirts). I am going to be a cutting crazy woman today, LOL!!!
Thanks for sharing this!!!!
I love this, I have always wanted to make a rag rug, Thanks so much this for this blog, wanting to see more. Thanks again kay
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Yarn from a t shirt-well I never… I love this idea! We have a clothing pantry and many of the t shirt we get have small holes or stains in them. THey are not much good for anything but rags but am wondering if they might work to do something like this. What do you think?
Looking forward to seeing projects using this t shirt yarn!
OMG! That is fantastic! Thank you for the tutorial!
I think I’ve found another favorite website! What a fabulous idea to recycle old t-shirts. I always feel bad throwing them away when there is still so much good fabric. Thank you, thank you for a practical solution.
I LOVE this!
will it work with a stretchy tshirt? I checked the tshirt label it says 95% cotton 5% spandex. will this work? I thought I’d ask before cutting up the tshirt.
Thank you
Should be OK
I cut a poly knitted jersey interlock and it woks too.
Don’t get what u mean by slant cut – how does it become one single strand
Wow. Fantastic idea. I have dozens of old t-shirts. I hate to through thing out. I use them for cleaning windows or things like that. Now I will give them a better use