T-shirts have always been one of those things that I have a hard time getting rid of. Even when they are full of holes (or half eaten by bleach...as seemed to happened to every shirt I owned while I worked in the school kitchen), it just seems wrong to throw out fabric that has so much life left in it.
Consequently, I have quite the stack of "special" t-shirts, that at least had some sort of redeemable graphic worth saving. Some of these shirts have literally been hanging around since middle school (ie. I'm-at-camp-because-I'm-about-to-be-a-sixth-grader kind of middle school). I finally went to work on a stack of them - saving the graphics, seams, and sleeves for some other project - and, after way more hours than I ever would have thought possible. There is now a second, much larger, rug for sale on my
Etsy shop.
It was a good project to pick up whenever I had a thirty minutes or an hour to spare, or as an excuse to get around to some of the documentaries that have been waiting in my bookmarks for months. (I watched
this one while I finished about half of the rug.)
Additionally, because most of the t-shirts I used (it took eight to finish a 32" by 19" rug) came from my own collection, the only thing that it cost me was my time - and quite a few kinks in my neck.
Every time that I finish a project like this one, I have a renewed sense of empathy for children and adults who
do work like this without receiving a fair price for their labor. Rug making is mind numbing!
How To:
This was the tutorial that I ran across over a year ago and snagged the initial idea from. Looking back at it now, though, that is not really the way that I did it AT ALL. Same basic concept, though. It's kind of like making one of those stretchy potholders - minus the plastic loom - or like a basic friendship bracelet. (Note: I started my rug differently, used four strands throughout, ignored any sort of a pattern, doubled stitches rather than skipping them on the corners, etc. Basically, I did nothing the way she said to, so take my results with a grain of salt.)
Consequently, I have quite the stack of "special" t-shirts, that at least had some sort of redeemable graphic worth saving. Some of these shirts have literally been hanging around since middle school (ie. I'm-at-camp-because-I'm-about-to-be-a-sixth-grader kind of middle school). I finally went to work on a stack of them - saving the graphics, seams, and sleeves for some other project - and, after way more hours than I ever would have thought possible. There is now a second, much larger, rug for sale on my Etsy shop.
It was a good project to pick up whenever I had a thirty minutes or an hour to spare, or as an excuse to get around to some of the documentaries that have been waiting in my bookmarks for months. (I watched this one while I finished about half of the rug.)
Additionally, because most of the t-shirts I used (it took eight to finish a 32" by 19" rug) came from my own collection, the only thing that it cost me was my time - and quite a few kinks in my neck.
Every time that I finish a project like this one, I have a renewed sense of empathy for children and adults who do work like this without receiving a fair price for their labor. Rug making is mind numbing!
How To: This was the tutorial that I ran across over a year ago and snagged the initial idea from. Looking back at it now, though, that is not really the way that I did it AT ALL. Same basic concept, though. It's kind of like making one of those stretchy potholders - minus the plastic loom - or like a basic friendship bracelet. (Note: I started my rug differently, used four strands throughout, ignored any sort of a pattern, doubled stitches rather than skipping them on the corners, etc. Basically, I did nothing the way she said to, so take my results with a grain of salt.)
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