T-shirt Yarn

I've been wanting to make t-shirt yarn for a long time, ever since seeing it for sale on Etsy and thinking it was so neat and thick.  Of course, I wear tons of tees and couldn't part with any of mine (and all of my husbands were sent to Goodwill a few months ago).  Finally, I went into my parents attic, opened one of my 200 bins of stuff (that they have been asking me to go through and clean out for the last ten years...) and found the perfect t-shirt to make yarn!  A size XL bright yellow t-shirt from my college orientation at Towson University ten (!!) years ago.  Of course, when I came downstairs with it my dad asked why I never gave HIM the t-shirt, to which I replied, "you would not wear a bright yellow t-shirt."  and he said "I might have if you'd given it to me when  you got it."  Point taken.  Sorry dad, the t-shirt has now been cut up into lovely yellow yarn!

I followed an awesome tutorial that I pinned a while ago.  This one has lots of pictures and was easy for me to follow, so check out Polka Dot Pineapple for the instructions.  It was super easy and didn't take too much time (and would have gone much faster if I had real scissors and not my small scissors from my knitting bag).

I knit up a swatch on my size 13 needles.  It was a little difficult to work with, so I think it would be best to use larger needles - I might pick some up this week.  I'm not sure what to make with it yet, but it knit up into a very thick piece - maybe a trivet or a potholder?  We'll see!  The yellow is a bit more vibrant in person.

 

 I still had the rest of the t-shirt from the sleeves up, so I decided to make this very cute t-shirt flower that I keep seeing around Pinterest.  You can see the tutorial on Emily's Little World.  Mine doesn't look nearly as good as hers, but I did get to break out my hot glue gun for the first time which was a great adventure (and I only burned myself once!)

 

Well, it's not perfect, but I like it.  I think the pop of yellow will be great pinned onto a gray, black, or navy sweater or scarf, so I just need to get a pin for the back of this.  It was easy and took about an hour to make; I definitely think I'll be making some to put on headbands or hairbows as Christmas gifts this year.  I still have my template (that I free-handed with my less-than-mediocre artistic skills) and with better scissors, I think I can get these done pretty quickly.

I hope you get your hands on some old tees and make some t-shirt yarn or fun fabric flowers!  I'm sure I'll be back in the attic soon scrounging for more clothes to cut up.