Up-Cycled T-Shirt Scarf

What's a girl to do when a crayon goes through the dryer and won't come out of the clothes? Well, when life hands you old t-shirts, make t-shirt scarves.

 I saw this idea on the internet a long time ago and pinned it. I had to try it right away. That was back in maybe April or somewhere thereabouts and we had an early summer this year so it was already too warm to get much use out of it. I put it in my closet and have been biding my time until cooler weather.

Twist it before putting it on for a more ropey look.

It isn't as long as some of the other scarves I've seen because I made it out of one of Stretch's t-shirts that he had outgrown and which wasn't fit for a hand-me-down (ergo a boys size 10 t-shirt makes a scarf as big as the one you see here). If you want a longer one you might try adult large or extra large t-shirts. Those should give you good length. You can use ones you have on hand or pick up extras at your thrift store.

You may have to experiment a little--certain knits of t-shirt work better than others. Ribbed knits don't work. I tried one of my t-shirts (from Target I think--maybe Mossimo?) and it just kind of frayed instead of curling in on itself. This brown t-shirt was a plain t-shirt (Hanes I think). You could use shirts with patterns or logos if you wish, but they won't have exactly the same look. This shirt had a small hole and red crayon stains. It is fine you don't notice the flaws now that it has been reincarnated.

Since I didn't think of taking pictures back when I made this, I will refer you to THIS POST and give you a quick step by step.

1. Lay your t-shirt out flat.
2. Using scissors (fabric scissors work best) start at the hem (set aside and save for later) and cut horizontally across the t-shirt, cutting into approximately one inch strips.Cut up to the sleeves. The sleeves are obviously not going to stretch enough to make a good scarf. Instead you can use them to make bracelets, t-shirt flowers or just use them as rags.
3. Take the strips and gently stretch them until the edges start to curl in on themselves. They will stretch quite a bit giving you big rings of material that will form your scarf.
4. Once you have made several rings, hold them together and secure all the loops with a length of the hem that you set aside earlier. Make one cut in the hem so you have a line instead of a circle. Now just wrap it around the loops several times and tuck in the ends. Clear as mud? ;)
5. To wear the scarf, put it on like a necklace (over the head) and loop it around. I could only loop the one I made one time but you could loop longer scarves more.

I think I may try this project again with a bigger t-shirt. You could do more than one color together, braid them, twist them or just wear them as is. Fun, eh?