DIY t-shirt yarn and what to make with it

make t-shirt yarn, AKA: "tarn"

work in progress: using t-shirt yarn from my instagram

I already used t-shirt yarn, but the store bought kind, so I thought I'd give it a try to make my own using, clearly, t-shirts.

Crucial: 
use blank t-shirts that don't have seams on the sides, and the larger, the better: they'll give you more bang yarn for for your bucks !

You'll need a Seam Ripper, and a Rotary Cutting Kit (scissors will do, but will take longer, especially if you are going to cut many t-shirts)

To be able to use every inch of the shirts, I ripped off the bottom seam.
This trick gave me about 3 extra yard for each shirt of un-stretched fabric to use... in the DIY world every inch counts!
Then, wash, dry and press your shirts, so you won't have any bad surprises about shrinking.

I followed the 

DIY t-shirt yarn tutorial provided on the Shirts.com blog 

Control the thickness

Another good point about making t-shirt yarn with t-shirts is that you can control the thickness of your yarn: you can cut strips of any width, and make yarn thicker of thinner, depending your needs.

For my coming project, I cut strips of 3/4", thinner than the usual store bought t-shirt yarn, because I didn't want to have a super-heavy finished garment.

Connecting t-shirt yarn: few stitches to avoid bulk.

Pay attention to have the fabric with the rolls on the same side.

The joined edges will be pratically invisible and will not add any bulk to the finished work.

Working with t-shirt yarn require rather large tools, whether knitting needles, or crochet hooks.

I used my own circular needle and made a set of DPN for the project that will be on the blog shortly.

the circular needle is a size 19US - 15mm - 
used a wooden dowel 5/8" diameter
it's a modified version of my previous DIY - check out the tutorial 

same size for the double pointed needles: cut 4 pieces of about 8"- 20cm long
and proceed to sharpen and smoothen the tips as shown in my tutorial here

need ideas? 

I set up a whole pinterest board dedicated to t-shirt yarn:  from small jewelry pieces to statement accessories for the home, to the latest runway garments, for women and for men - with plenty of tutorials and inspiration that will fulfill any t-shirt yarn desire.

Anything you could make from crochet, to knitting, to tunisian crochet, to macrame, weaving and more. 

Come back tomorrow for the new tutorial :)

xox, d.

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