Tee Shirt Yarn Tutorial

Here's how I make a single, continuous length of yarn from an old tee shirt.

You will need a ruler, a pair of fabric scissors and something to mark the fabric with. I'm using a soft drawing pencil.

Step 1:
Cut off the bottom hem and cut across from armpit to armpit.  You won't be using the bottom hem or the top part.

Step 2:
Fold one of the folded edges until it's a couple inches away from the opposite folded edge.

Step 3:
Flip the fabric 90 degrees. Mark the bottom edge and the edge of the overlying chunk of fabric at 1 inch increments.

Step 4:
Draw parallel lines connecting your marks.

Step 5:
Cut along the lines. Make sure you cut all the way through the overlapping folded edge, but don't cut those couple inches at the top (the unmarked area). If you cut all the way up, you will have a bunch of loops.

Step 6:
Unfold the fabric and lay it out so the uncut area is flat. Now here comes the trickiest part. You're going to cut from the first slit at the bottom to the second slit on the top. See how I'm holding the ruler? That's the line you cut along. I don't mark this part because it's easiest to just hold it in your hand and eyeball it.

Step 7:
Push the loop you cut off aside. For the rest, you are going to cut from the first slit on the bottom to the first slit on the top. You're going to create a long, continuous strip of fabric. Keep going until you reach the end.

Step 8:
Now at the ends, you have a couple funny looking loops. To fix that, you just taper off from the slit to the outside edge. I like the tapered edge because I think it's nice when you transition from one ball of yarn to another. It also blends in nicely when you weave in the ends to finish your knitting.

Step 9:
The fun part! You now have a pile of what looks like jersey ribbon. To give it a rounded, yarn-like appearance, you just grab a section between your hands and pull! Keep going for the whole length of yarn and you're done!

Now take that pretty pile and wind it into a ball. (I like this center pull ball method (scroll down the the bottom of the page))

Please let me know if you like this tutorial, or if you have any problems with it!

Drawing: Heart II

Drawing: Heart

Air

8" x 10", acrylic and cut out on canvas

ASL - k

ASL - i

ASL - h

ASL - g

ASL - f

Western Bluebird

Old Photos From School

Here are some photos from a university class.  New bird drawing coming soon.

ASL - d

Little Paintings

A couple little paintings. Each is 6" x 8", acrylic and paper on masonite. Words from "Be Thou My Vision", a traditional Christian hymn.

ASL - c

ASL - b

ASL - a

Hand Spun Scarflet

Swatching

Elizabeth Zimmermann Socks

Man Booties

Construction Worker

Schnoz

McFluffums

Blackrose Socks

My first real pair of knit socks! Yay! You know, for years I've seen people knit socks and I just never got it. But I had some sock yarn and a little time, so I figured what the hey? And I gotta be honest with you, I really enjoyed it. There's something very satisfying about a quit knit project and the socks are actually really comfortable. I'm not about to throw away all my plain white socks, but I will probably knit more pairs, from time to time.

Pattern: Blackrose Socks
Yarn: Knit Picks Essential Multi in Lily Pad

Chullo For My Sister

My sister lives in the frigid arctic of upstate New York. A place where it actually snows and the ground is frozen for months of the year. So when I asked what she wanted for her birthday, she said that she could use a cute, whimsical hat. I got the basic pattern from knitty.com and switched it up a bit.



It was a lot of fun to knit, but oh my goodness, so much color work! The great thing about all the colors is you can use up some of those fingering weight remnants that sock knitters are bound to have lying around. Most of the yarn for this one is superwash wool from knitpicks. A few are leftover yardage from gorgeous hand dyed skeins.

Cassin's Kingbird

Black-Necked Stilt

Loggerhead Shrike