Soap Savers from T-shirt Yarn

Made these cute little soap Savers from cotton t-shirt yarn. These are one of my favourite practical things to crochet with small amount of yarn.

Planter Basket from Cotton T-shirt Yarn

A large size planter can be quite costly to buy. The less expensive ones usually don't look very good. An awesome alternative that worth a try is to crochet one from unwanted cotton garments you have at home. The trick is to collect enough garments in matching colours to creat enough t-shirt yarn.

For this project, I created a 22cm diameter and height size planter so I can fit in a 21cm plastic pot. I use 4.5 balls of T-shirt yarn that I made from 4 cotton shirts and a skirt.

The bottom of the planter bag:

Fast forward to the completed planter bag:

I also sewed on a clear plastic liner inside the bag, just from a large size plastic bag that I kept from buying products. This is to ensure the bag is waterproof.

My T-shirt yarn stash. See my previous post on making t-shirt yarn.

Eco-friendly Washable Dishwashing Scrubers from Cotton T-shirt Yarn

Following from my making t-shirt yarn post some time ago, I have collected quite a few balls of cotton t-shirt yarn. (I've been busy..)

With the white ones I crocheted a few dishwashing scrubbers for my Etsy store stock.

We have been using this type of dishwashing scrubber for probably around 2 years now and they work really well both with liquid dishwashing soap and with bar dishwashing soap.

They make lots of bubble and also are able retain them very well during the washing process, which means less top up of the soap.

They are very easy to clean as well. In summer I usually handwashed them and dry them on top of the kitchen tap. In winter, I usually put them in the washing machine together with the tea towels and line dry them.

We have had a few of these that worn out and became really thin and stretchy. I put them in the compost bin and they degraded as they are cotton.

My T-shirt yarn stash:

Rosemary, Aloe Vera Cocoa Butter Dishwashing Soap Bar

One of the things that I quickly noticed since we've been staying at home is that we are washing the dishes more often. So with this in mind I thought to prepare more dishwashing soap bars.

This bar of soap is another cocoa butter based with addition of Rosemary and Aloe Vera. I think it turned green because of the Rosemary. 

Now curing on my kitchen bench:

T-shirt Yarn Making - Using (Almost) All Parts of the Shirt

Making yarn from cotton shirts can be a great way to redirect unwanted garment from landfill. It is also an awesome opportunity to create interesting mix and match of colours in the finish product. 

I learned how to make this yarn from various online tutorials. But unfortunately after a few times making them, I realised there was still some excess fabric that ended up in the rubbish bin. I recently had some time to figure this out and try to find a way to utilise as much shirt fabric as I possible can. My end goal is to minimise the amount of excess material that ends up in landfill. 

I hope this will be useful for others to try as well. 

1. The first step is to separate the bottom and top part of the shirt. In most of the online tutorial that I learned from, the top part of the shirt is discarded and the work continues with the bottom part of the shirt. 

  

2. I take the top part of the shirt and cut through the underarm sleeves seam. 

 

At this point, I also cut the clothing label: (Sadly, the label will go to the rubbish bin)

3. Then I lay the top part of the shirt flat, like this:

And, I start cutting the fabric in continuous round:

This takes a bit more effort but you will get more yarn in the end, so it's really worth it.

4. At some point during this process, you will encounter a dead end. Usually at the point where the front neckline band is. I cut away this part and continue cutting along the rest of the neckline to maintain a continuous fabric cutting. For this particular shirt, I can save the small bit of the front neckline band and use it for soft plant ties. (More on this in Step 6)

 

5. Then, I continue cutting in round as before following the shape of the fabric remain. 

6. For this shirt, there was a small piece of fabric in rectangular shape. I cut this into thin long strips and use them for soft plant ties. 

My collection of soft plant ties from various cotton fabric remains.

7. The rest of the work involves the bottom part of the shirt. There is a lot of online tutorial for this and they are very easy to follow. The bottom part of the shirt is laid flat (I like to place the side seams of the shirt in the middle). Then I cut thin long strips but not all the way through:

8. The section at the top where the fabric was still joined together are then cut diagonally to maintain continuous fabric strip.:

9. The last step is the most satisfying of all and that is when you roll the thin strips of fabric into a ball of yarn:

It's unlimited what you can make out of this... Happy Days!!

Sp, that's the whole process and in the end there were only a very small amount of materials that ended up in the rubbish bin. They are the clothing labels, store tags and a very small piece of odd shape fabric:

I hope others will find this useful and let me know what other ways can be done to fully utilise an unwanted piece of clothing. I can't wait to make more of this and create beautiful and practical items to be used around home.

Weekend Crafting - Stay At Home!!

Because of Covid-19, I have a legit reason to enforce  the rest of the family to do a stay at home weekend. Obviously, I spent the weekend crafting for more Easter and Mother's Day store stock: