Thursday, September 08, 2011

Teeshirt scarf

Autumn hasn't really kicked in yet here in Paris. It's getting cooler and breezier, but when the sun is out, it's still fairly warm. I'm not even ready to wear tights yet, let alone a coat or cool weather accessory. But I did recently make myself a scarf from entirely recycled materials and so this is my transition clothing challenge piece. I used old teeshirts for my "yarn" and the result is a fairly stiff but smooth and non-scratchy scarf. Soft but hard if that is possible.


I should note that this isn't my own, brilliant idea. I had seen something about this on a blog somewhere. Or maybe it was about using old teeshirts to make rugs? I can't remember, but I know this isn't an original concept. 

Anyway, I cut up a stack of old, stretched or ripped or stained in some place teeshirts, that ranged in color from coral to a dark pink. I tried to cut the teeshirts around and round, like peeling the skin off an apple, so that each turned into one long, thin piece. I then tied all the pieces together and rolled them into a ball of "yarn". I knitted up the scarf doing the usual knit one row, purl one row thing, on my biggest needles. Size 10 maybe? (Please excuse my lack of technical explanation here, I don't really knit.)

Despite the big needles and the stretchy material, the scarf turned out rather short. I wet it and blocked it and everything, but it still short and curls in somewhat. I can only wear it like this:

The material is too stiff to make a cowl/neckwarmer that would pass over my head, but I'm thinking I could loop the scarf as above and pin the ends together with a cool brooch to give a cowl effect. Hmmm.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

nice

TracyKM said...

Pretty!
Yes, it can be "soft but hard". The stiffness is the 'hand' of the fabric--how it drapes. Larger needles should be able to make it drape better, and it will take a lot of "yarn" to make it a larger scarf. This would be great if you have a whole bunch of t-shirts from school or something...