Cotton T-shirts: Recycled into really cool stuff!

Welcome to 2014!

I've been busy with all sorts of quilty (and not-so-quilty) things!

Here's one of the projects I've been working on. 

 



 



Actually, this is three projects. Kind of. 

 





 

For several months, I've had an entire box of cotton T-shirts (that I bought at the thrift store), to turn into T-shirt yarn. In my ongoing quest to use the stuff in my craft-storage-spaces, last week, I got out the box of t-shirts and started cutting.

 

Since I'm not in the mood to crochet/knit/weave this T-shirt yarn right now, I thought I'd see if somebody else wants to buy it ... so this nice lot of 16 skeins of bulky T-shirt yarn (over 400 yards total) is listed on eBay for a little while.

 



I don't know if anybody else has this dilemma, but I've always wondered what in the world to do with "the rest of the T-shirt" after cutting yarn out of the tube-shaped body of the t-shirt. You know ... the sleeves and the "yoke" area of the shirt. Cutting it into short strips just seems to make a mess, and I'm not sure what to do with little foot-long bits of T-shirt yarn.

 

New plan: Cut all that "excess" into squares. Quilt Squares. 6-and-a-half-inch squares. And 4-and-a-half-inch squares. (Because that's what sizes my square rulers are!) 

 

These stacks of squares are becoming really soft quilts. Fleece-backed T-shirt quilts. I like them already. I'm making this one with the 6.5" squares. (I still have a big stack of 4.5" squares, and plenty more fleece ... fun!)

Inspiration for this layout came from this quilt I saw on Pinterest. (See other quilt ideas, quilting technique ideas, and my own projects on my Pinterest profile.)

 

So, since I had a nice rainbow thing going with those yarns and those squares, the 3 black T-shirts I cut into yarn didn't seem to fit in with the others. So, I decided to make a little doily-style doormat with the black T-shirt yarn and some leftover blue jersey-sheet-yarn I had leftover. 

 

 

Anyway ... Three projects (and counting) from my box of T-shirts:

 

400+ yards of rainbow-colored T-Shirt yarn ... 

 



 

The super-cozy Fleece-and-T-shirt quilt throw quilt that I'm quilting in variegated thread (probably destined for eBay...)

 



And, the very handy, very washable, very absorbent little rug that looks great in front of the door, and helps out on these wet/muddy winter days.

 

 

Before long, I'll be blogging about some of the quilts I've worked on but haven't blogged about yet ... a couple of Christmassy things I couldn't blog about sooner; a couple of long-time (vintage-y!) finishes I've had the privilege of helping with; a couple of other quilts I didn't get around to blogging earlier. Stay tuned!