Monday, March 05, 2012

T-shirt yarn tutorial continued

If you've been on the edge of your seat since I started to post about T-shirt yarn and couldn't finish I'm here to put you out of your misery! :)

When I left off the other day I had cut up the main body of the shirt and was preparing to work on the sleeves and neck-line. A word of warning: cutting into the sleeves and around the neck opening means you will be incorporating under arm and shoulder seams and thus will make a slightly lumpier or uneven yarn. I'm OK with that, but you may not be. Read on and decide for yourself!


And here's the whole cut up pile of one continuous spiral strip. I used to just wind it up as is, but with a little magic, you can turn it into proper yarn. Just pick up a yard's length at a time and streeeeeetttccch it out. Both edges will curl under and Voila!


And the best part is that, once stretched, it stays that way. So do that, a yard at a time and then winding into a ball until you have it all done.


Now its time to attack the sleeves.


Cut off the hem. You will note that there is less fabric in the underarm area than in the shoulder. You can compensate a little and get more spiral by cutting your strip slightly narrower there and wider at the shoulder. You won't really notice any difference in your yarn quality.


Start at the underarm seam as shown and cut a wedge to start your strip.


Now just keep cutting around and around. Sorry, the rotary cutter is not an option here (I was going to make a very bad pun, as in: the rotary cutter just won't cut it, but I held myself back, aren't you glad?)


When you get to the seam, just cut right through it. It will be OK, I promise.


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