Use It Up

Thank you for the nice comments about my tee shirt skirt! I have no idea why so many of you were skeptical about the idea, though. Was it the colors? The sections? The printing on the tees? The potential to look like a circus tent? Ha! Just kidding! I was a little wary myself.

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To answer some questions:

Janey--No, the tees were not all thick ones. In fact, they weren't the same weights at all. The red one was really thin, and the black one was really thick. It worked anyway. I swear this thing is foolproof.

Linda C--Nope, it isn't lined. I wore it with a slip, so no clings. That was one of my fears, though, that it would show every bump and bulge. I think as long as you cut it right--with enough flare away from the body--it's fine.

Anyway, the reason I brought up the skirt again is because I'm working on another project using the scraps. They probably should have gone straight into the trash, but I hung onto them for some reason. Yep, that's them in the picture up there.

I thought maybe I could make some kind of flower with them. Melynda made a neat one when she refashioned a tee. But then where would I put it? Hmm...keep thinking...keep thinking....

Some of the cut edges were curling up a little, which reminded me of the way many refashioners cut strips from tee shirts and then pull on them to make a kind of cord. That seemed like a good place to start, so I cut a bunch of strips, yanked on them, and made myself a pile of cord.

At this point, they reminded me of those loops I made hot pads out of when I was a kid. Not needing another hot pad, however, I decided to make coasters. Needing some sort of stability, I sewed strips onto twill tape. I have to say, I loved how they looked as a fringe, and if I could have thought of something to do with tee shirt fringe, I'd have been all over it!

After weaving a few rows, I realized it was going to be a nightmare trying to sew down the other end if I left it until last, so I gave the other end the twill tape treatment as well. Then it was just a matter of filling in the weaving. Towards the end, I used a pair of forceps to pull the cords through the little spaces.

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Then, once it was filled in, I sewed around the whole thing with a zig zag stitch and trimmed the edges.

It's sort of like a little baby rag rug. I really just wanted to see what I could do with those scraps, but this could be a neat method for making placemats, pillows, hot pads, even a little clutch bag. Maybe someone will be inspired to make something more glamorous!

Edited to add a link to the potholder looms, a better picture of how it looks before you start weaving, and proof that I actually made the second one!