Saturday, August 11, 2012

Adventures in Tee Shirt Yarn


For whatever reason, I've got it in my head to crochet a rug out of old (well, purchased from goodwill mostly) tee shirts.  Today I started my adventures in making said teeshirts, and have had mixed results, but I've learned a couple things.

First off- look at your shirt and make sure it's not just a really fine 1x1 rib.  You can tell this pretty easily- if the inside fabric looks just like the outside fabric (i.e. it's got Vs and not little purl bumps on the inside), then it's 1x1 rib.  It's not TERRIBLE yarn, but it won't curl as well and will look more raggedy than the plain old stockinette knit.

If you can find shirts without side seams- EVEN BETTER.  The seams *can* be hidden in the crochet, but the fabric will want to curl with the inner side facing out, so definitely if you find tees without the extra side seams, all the better.  The fewer seams the better.

The rotary cutter is your friend.  What I do is follow this tutorial, but instead of using scissors, I get out my cutting mat and rotary cutter.  I iron the shirt to make sure it's all flat and even (this can take a while) and then use the rotary cutter to cut off the arms of the shirt (At the armpits) and then use my clear quilting ruler to measure the width I want for the yarn (My first batch I used 1 inch, but I may go with 1.5 next time), and use the cutting pad's built in grid to keep the 1 inch bit at the top.  EASY PEASY.  I mean, seriously.  It's quick, easy, and it turns out lovely.  My attempt with scissors sucked.

If you want "plain" colored yarn, you don't have to limit yourself to plain tees; anything with a design that stops above the armpits of the shirt will still be useable.  

I may experiment later with making short lengths of yarn from the "leftovers" of the shirts.  I found a tutorial with a fairly simple joining method, too.  We'll see.

I'm still in the learning stages so I will probably end up doing something smaller with these yarns I'm working on, but I'm fairly excited about the whole thing.  So fun.

Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Friendship Bracelets: The love that keeps coming back


this is a bracelet I made quite a while ago, but it's one of my most impressive and favorite designs


Well, I'm into friendship bracelets again.

What? I can't help it. I blame Regretsy. Someone made a club fuckery bracelet for the charity store and I saw it, and immediately got re-hooked. Now I'm working on learning some new designs to add to my repetoire, and checking out nifty ones I see on Etsy and trying to see if I can replicate/improve on them. Hopefully that won't result in any butthurt from people, but I also know that very few of those designs are self-designed and I figure if I can reverse-engineer it.. well, anyway.

I did manage to find a pattern site, so I imagine that'll keep me occupied.

In non-crafty news, I am moving from New York to Montana next Tuesday- this time I'm doing it fully, bringing a uhaul and everything. My dad and I will be switching off on driving, and he'll get to meet Jeremy's family, so.. that'll be nifty. Of course I am stressed out beyond belief, but I am trying to do a craft for one hour before bed- without the computer in front of me (Crazy, I know!!!!)- to see if that can help me with my sleep problems. It seemed to help a little bit last night, so I have high hopes that it will continue to help. We'll see, though.

I made one bracelet last night- it was a 3-strander diagonal stripe in purple, lavender, and pink- I'm wearing it now. Very thin, but also cute. I do like handmade bracelets because I can customize them to my own wrist- which is of course larger than normal. There's also something relaxing about arranging the knots into patterns.

Plus my cat loves to watch me, so how cool is that?

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

First Post

Not going to do much here yet, still working on the blog design, but look forward to lots of crafty geeky stuff :D