When I have spare time (ha.ha) I like to get onto Pinterest and have a look at the cool stuff people are making. I’m a big fan on recycling and upcycling – turning junk into something new and beautiful. And there are some wonderful examples of people being thrifty and creative on the site. I saw a few tutorials on Pinterest that this particular project was based on and I decided that I’d give it a go for myself.
The T-shirt rug looked complicated… but I wanted to give it a go. I have had a huge bag of old t-shirts that have been kept or collected from jumble sales for crafting purposes – This is the BEST way to acquire great fabric for next to nothing, second hand clothes, just choose fabrics, colours, textures that you like.
I have no weaving experience. None. And I saw a few funny blogs online of some pretty epic fails from some people who had tried to make the rug.What I gathered from that was not to weave the weft too tight… bad idea according to this blogger.
I’m happy to say, mine worked. Fluke? Quite possibly likely.
I’m not sure where the original link from this particular tutorial came from as I’ve found a bunch of different blogs quoting the tutorial and using the same pics. Confusing much? Anyway, here is a good one and the one that I followed, whether or not it’s the original? I’m not sure.
On top of those tutorial instructions my little additions would be:
– the thicker your t-shirt strips are the better the results.
– you can keep weaving right up until one or two inches from the hula hoop edge… I don’t know why they say don’t. I did… and it was fine?
– I also used the waistband bits (the instructions say not to) and they worked just fine!
– I didn’t need to use tape to secure it to the hula hoop I didn’t find it slipped at all… but I used a stretch cotton shirt so maybe that helped? I’m not sure… it’s all guess work and as you know, I’m not very good at following instructions carefully.
– I only needed 6 t-shirts, not 12, but I think perhaps my 99c jumble sale hula-hoop was a bit smaller than they suggested?
This would be an awesome activity to do with kids. It’s cheap, and you probably have all of the materials laying around your home somewhere. Weaving isn’t hard and kids could have a great time making cute rugs for their bedrooms.
Mine isn’t perfect, but it’s a fun addition to our bathroom and it only took a couple of hours to make and it’s a great way to reuse old shirts that potentially would have been fodder for landfill.
Now if only I could figure out how to get an almost-one year old to stop pulling at the fabric…
Yvette - Love the idea of up cycling. I once found a pattern to knit a bathroom rug using old t-shirts. Still want to make some aprons from old jeans. Thanks for the inspiration Sash.
Lilybett - Love that you got to use the word ‘weft’ in a post.
I just pulled out an old stripey shirt that I’d worn while pregnant and used in most of my ‘bump’ pics and am going to try and turn that into a pair of slouchy pants for my boy – couldn’t bear to just throw it away or stick it in the charity bin.
Sash - I love that I got to learn what “weft” means 😛
Erica - Wow this is awesome… I think I’ll try it!
Lina Ibrahim - OHH!! SOO DOING THIS!!!