30+ t shirts, 40+ hours, recycling at it's best

Over the past few weeks I had been working on another personal recycling project -- this time tackling a dresser full of old t-shirts.

Every time we clean out our closet, I go through most of it and keep it - saying I'll make something out of this some day...

Well, the dresser in my studio was beyond bulging at the seams, and I had just seen pictures of those awesome old-school braided rugs (if you're from the midwest, you know what I'm talking about. Every grandma made her own rugs.) but the price that good ol' Martha was asking was EXPENSIVE!!!

So I was like, "I could totally make that", and immediately remembered my t shirt stash.

I took each shirt, cut it into one long strip, and started braiding the strips together. I'm a pretty good braider, I learned from my dad, and was shocked to discover that braiding long things, REALLY long things, is beyond difficult. As you braid, all the rest of the pieces end up braiding themselves the other way, and it basically negates what you've even done! This never crossed my mind because hair isn't that long, silver wire isn't that long, and these t shirt strips were between 1-3 yards long. I had to bundle up one section of the shirt strip into a ball, try and hold it in my hand while braiding - passing this shirt bundle back and forth between my hands. It's a good thing that I have such long fingers, and still, I was dropping it often.

It took probably 12-16 hours to cut and braid all the t-shirts from my drawer, which ended up being over 30. Maybe 33, but I lost count. I did measure the length of braid afterwards, and it was 67 yards. That's crazy.

Next my task was to crochet the braid to itself, and I thought a circle would be the easiest way to do that.

About 2 hours into my first attempt at crocheting a circle, I realized that if the circle doesn't expand, it becomes a bowl. Not a flat circle. Somehow, I needed to add in extra "stitches" of braid, which made sense after I saw my mistake.

I ripped out my work. I did - it was a lot of work, but it wasn't working as a rug. So I had to start over.

This was turning out much better, and was so fatiguing! I work a lot on the computer, but this was a different kind of eye strain - and I started to get rope burn from the string running over my finger.
(as a side note - my great grandma was an EXPert with crocheting, making doilies with thread so small it was like sewing thread. She was amazing. I'll show you her snowflakes sometime)

So, the other day after about 30 total hours crocheting, I finished the rug at 1 in the morning. I was so stoked, I couldn't stop looking at it. It's turned into this beautiful mandala of sorts - all I want to do is stand on it barefoot - put it on the deck and sit on it, put it in my office and sit on it, fold it up into a square and sit on it some more. The t-shirt braids made for such a surprising amount of squish under my feet - it is just amazing.

I will definitely do this project again. This rug is only a 4 foot circle, someday I want to make a huge oval rug that is at least 10 feet long. That would be amazing. Some day I want to have my kids help too, like we can make a family rug of our shirts -- they can see bits of all of us every day - sit and read a book and draw cartoons or play games on it. This project is my favorite one yet.

Enjoy the pics :)

all the braid laid out so I could see how much there was, and how the colors were working

this is how big the braid was in my hand

crocheting the braid to itself

finished t shirt rug - i LOVE how the colors turned out!!!

Labels: , , , , , , , , , , , ,