Something for the weekend

Recycled t-shirt rug

Something strange happened, I found myself with a free weekend! Well, I could have done my tax return but I decided that spending the time crocheting would be much more productive. I've been planning to make a rug for my studio from my old jersey tops since we moved in a year ago and so this weekend seemed like the perfect opportunity.

No longer worn tops

Making them into yarn

Fabric yarn ready to use

I had a big clear out of my wardrobe fairly recently so I had plenty of materials. I'm something of a magpie and find it really hard to get rid of stuff especially if I think I can re-use it for something else. The problem with this is that I end up with stacks and stacks of stuff and no time to do anything with it! So, it was very satisfying finally getting around to cutting all my no longer worn tops and vests into yarn, winding it into balls and admiring it.

Getting started

Second colour

Progressing

I based my design on an old doily pattern, simplifying it to accommodate the oversized yarn. I had to use the sleeves as well as the bodies of the t-shirts for some of the rounds as this project uses a lot of yarn/fabric and I tried to stick to one colour/item of clothing for each round. For the final edging I ended up using two different fabrics but I think this adds to the quirky nature of the project.

Centre section

Detail

Edge detail

The finished rug is about 80 cm across and used four vests, six tops and some leftover  t-shirt yarn from Harry's cat house and a 12 mm hook. I'm pleased with the finished result, I think next time I make something like this though I will make it a bit more solid as I'm not sure how practical the openwork areas on this one are but it does look pretty!

As soon as I set it down Harry claimed it