Upcycle T-shirts into Yarn! | Jill Tarabar | Skillshare
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Taught by industry leaders & working professionals
Topics include illustration, design, photography, and more

Watch this class and thousands more

Get unlimited access to every class
Taught by industry leaders & working professionals
Topics include illustration, design, photography, and more

Lessons in This Class

    • 1.

      Upcycle T shirt Yarn Introduction

      1:12

    • 2.

      Upcycle T shirt Yarn Supplies

      1:20

    • 3.

      Upcycle T shirt Yarn Get started

      2:31

    • 4.

      Upcycle T shirt Yarn Final Steps

      2:45

    • 5.

      Upcycle T shirt Yarn Conclusion

      2:31

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About This Class

If you're like our family... we're "just in it for the t-shirt!" Whether it's a charity event, concert or sports team, the t-shirts accumulate fast!

This project is a great way to UPcycle those shirts... but if you'd rather not part with your memories, a wide variety of colorful t-shirts can be found at your local thrift store a a great price. 

Follow these few easy steps to create approximately 40 yards of a continuous strand of colorful, machine washable, cotton, heavy worsted to bulky weight yarn out of each shirt.

Meet Your Teacher

Teacher Profile Image

Jill Tarabar

Glass art by day. Fiber Artist by night.

Teacher

me in a nutshell:
mom of 2 great young adults
wife of a wonderful husband
graphic designer by day
fiber and glass artist by night
somewhat obsessed by the creative process
blessed (or cursed) by fearless creativity...

I have been knitting for as long as I can remember, learning from my mother and grandmother. Always searching for an interesting project or technique, unusual fiber or stitch pattern. I've knit with yarn, wire and up-cycled yarn from old t-shirts (watch for a future Skillshare class on this technique!) My largest project by far was designing and knitting the Chuppah for my son's wedding. 

I've also spent a number of years working with Stained Glass, designing jewelry boxes, picture frames and more. Ultimately, my goal is ... See full profile

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Transcripts

1. Upcycle T shirt Yarn Introduction: Hello. My name is Jill Tara Bar. Today, I'd like to teach you how to turn T shirts into yard. If you're anything like our family way joke at every event, were Onley in it for the shirt. Whether it's a musical event, whether it's a charity event, whether it's a sporting event, whether it's a team we follow, we accumulate T shirts like nobody's business. So I've come up with a way to take those shirts and turn them into a useful yarn. In the short Siris of videos, I will demonstrate how to go from T Shirt two yard, which can be used in any way that you use yarn and can be knitted and shade. It could be used a smacker may. Anything you want can be done with this. It's also machine washable, which is fabulous. It's caught 100% cotton, usually depending upon the shirts that you choose. So let's get started 2. Upcycle T shirt Yarn Supplies: way to complete this project, you'll need two things. You'll need T shirts and you'll need a fabric scissor. It's helpful if you don't use the scissor for paper on Lee for fabric, these could be founded any craft store fabric store. Many of the big box retailers. Once you've used a fabric scissor for paper, though it dulls it. So try to keep it separate from your other scissors and only uses for fabric. There are two things to look out for when choosing shirts. The main thing is you do not want your shirt to have a sign seen. Choose a T shirt that does not have side seems under the arms. The second thing is to choose T shirts that do not have sewn on decorations printed on decorations air. Fine tied. I is gonna be a lot of fun. We're going to see what that comes out looking like. But you do not want to have any type of all over sewn decoration. So just those two things. No side teams and no sound decorations and you're ready to go 3. Upcycle T shirt Yarn Get started: first step is to lay your shirt out on the table, any surface that you're able to cut on. You want to try to smooth out as many wrinkles as possible. We're going to start by cutting off a lower head. Just cut it off completely right along the edge of the stitches. This is where the yardstick will come in handy. Lay it down on the farther under arm catch. We're gonna be working from the right side of the shirt to the left side of the shirt from closest to furthest from you. So if you lay your yard stick along that farther edge, that gives you a good line to remind yourself where to stop cutting. No, we are going to cut this T shirt up, starting at the lower edge. Closest touch to you begin by cutting about one inch wide strips, stopping when you get to the yardstick. Do that again. We're going to cut about one inch wide strip. It's helpful to try Teoh cut thes strips as even as possible, but this is not an exact science. There's really no reason for them to all be exactly the same. Just as close as possible stopping at the edge. That way we leave a band at the top. Uncut. Now we've reached the under arm, and I'm gonna cut from the same side of them working on from the closest side. I'm going to cut straight across to the other under arm and I'm gonna cut right off the end . So I am cutting off the shirt, Thea arms and the top part of the shirt from the bottom, as you can see. 4. Upcycle T shirt Yarn Final Steps: I always wanted to try this project with a tie dye shirt. So here we go. Time to turn What looks a little bit like a hula skirt into one continuous strand of yard. Open up the T shirts so that you exposed the three inch section that is uncut. Now you can see we have cuts coming from either side of it. And this is where the magic happens. We're going to start at the right hand edge with our scissor. We're gonna cut on an angle, stopping at that first strip. So as you can see, we have an angle cut. So we're now we're going from the first strip to the second strip the first strip to the second strip on an angle away, down from one end of the shirt to the other. And when you get to the other end, you have one strip on the left. You have to on the right. You're gonna do basically the same thing you did at the beginning. Only backwards you're gonna cut from that one Strip off the edge, Ted. Uh, now we have one long, continuous loop of T shirt. How do we turn it into yarn by holding and tugging poll and tug. So you have a curled edge that you have a smooth edge. All your irregularities, you're cutting. Irregularities get lost as he edges are pulled in and your yard becomes surprisingly equal in width from one end to the other. 5. Upcycle T shirt Yarn Conclusion: thank you for watching my videos. I hope now you understand the concept of cutting T shirts into a continuous strand of yard . And now it's time to go scissor crazy and cut up every T shirt you have in the house. Maybe not. Okay, well, anyway, it's just to show you some of the items that can be made with T shirt yarn. I have a few here. Curuchet, this cute little basket. If you like to crush a, it's around base and then the sides to go straight up from there. It's created in two colors, reds and graze. I believe I used about three T shirts to red T shirts and about half of a gray T shirt to create this. I also have this market back to show you that, um, I've included the pattern for you, a link to the pattern in the class notes. So this is knitted again from the base. I used seven different T shirts for this, and it is a little on the heavy side because, you know, seven T shirts way a little bit, but I used won t shirt. You can see how far I got with each color by changing colors that we have one red T shirt, one orange, one yellow, one green, one blue, one violet creating the handles. So that pattern is included with the class notes. If you have any questions about it, please ask. I'm happy to answer any questions you have. I will also have the pattern for this available in my Etsy shop. You guys get it for free. The other item I wanted to show you is this necklace. This will be the next class that I teach. So once we've created T shirt yarn, this lovely necklace can be made without any knitting skills. No sewing skills are needed. It's truly just wrapping and nodding. So please watch for my next skill share video. How to create a fashion. Nicolas, Stay tuned for more for me. Jill Terra Bar on skill Share