Wednesday, January 4, 2012

T-Shirt Scarf

I have a TON of old t-shirts that are just packed away in boxes. Initially they get put there because I either needed more room in my dresser, or I just simply hadn't warn them in a while. Seasons changes and the boxes get shuffled around a bit but the same shirts remain in the boxes time after time. I can't throw them away because what if one day I wanted to wear it again. Ugh! Plus some of them aren't just shirts. Some of them have memories attached to them. Like the one I brought home from Odessa when visiting a friend, or the one I received at State BPA. Clearly they are all at least 6 years old and haven't been wore for about 4 years.... So now its time I start making them into something that I will wear again.

My younger sister was passing through tonight so I wrangled her into helping me out with this one. I didn't tell her what we were making - I just told her what to do to help : ) Turns out its hard for a lefty to use right-handed scissors. Initially we were going to make two scarves, but we merged them into one. Here's how we did it:

1. Lay out the shirt flat. An ironed shirt works better than a wrinkled one. Cut the bottom hem off and save it.

2. Grab a 9'' paper plate. You can either trace around it and then cut it out, or do like we did, pin the plate to the shirt and then cut around it. In total, you want to aim to make 10 circles. Using XL or XXL probably works best. I used size Large and could only get 8, which is why we ended up putting ours together. After you cut one out, place it on top the shirt and pin it. This makes cutting them out easier.

3. One you have all 8-10 circles, your going to do what I did when I made the felt flowers. Cut the circle into a long strip, approximately 2'' wide. The skinner you cut the longer it will be. Keep in mind, one of these pieces equals half a length of your scarf.

4. Once you reach the end, Hold the piece from what would have been the middle. Start at the top and gently put down on the fabric. This will stretch it out a bit and create a wavy look.

5. After all the circles are cut and pulled out, match up the lengths as best you can. (Robin had to cut one to make it shorter as it ended up 6'' longer than the rest because she cut it too thin!)

6. Using fabric glue, glue the matched pieces together. I glued the end of the strips together that would have been the middle of the circles.

7. If you used different colors like we did, mix them up a bit once they are all glued together.
8. Bunch up the strips of fabrics, holding all the glued pieces in the same spot. Using the hem strip, wrap it around the glued part to cover it up and then tie it in a pretty knot to hold it all together. 

And Wah-La! A t-shirt scarf. Good to dress up, or dress down any outfit!

1 comment:

Jen said...

love this idea... a neighbour of mine had made a scarf out of ribbons and i was going to try one of them... i'll be adding yours to my list to try too!

jen

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