

Thinking back to my high school days, I remembered making rag rug coasters, out of old clothes, and figured I could probably still manage a project like that. We aren't really in need of coasters though, so I figured I'd try for some place mats, a rug. Or if those turned out to be too labor intensive for my schedule, maybe I'd just make a jump rope, or a tiny basket. As you can see from the picture at the top of this post, I ended up with a basket.
The process was a little time consuming, but by sticking with a smaller project, it was not overwhelming. And, the children were pretty happy to be able to keep, at least in some form, a few of their favorite old shirts.
I started by cutting the shirts into strips, one long continuous strip per shirt. I only cut the bottom portion of the shirts, so I didn't get into the parts with writing on them.

Then, when I had cut three shirts worth of strips, I overlapped them at one end, hand stitched them together, and braided them into a long rope. From the bottom portion of three, medium sized boys shirts, I ended up with about a ten foot long braid.


When I had the sides as high as I wanted, I looped the braid across the top of the basket, and tucked the end in, on the opposite side, securing it with a number of stitches.

Then, I began stitching up and down the sides, and across the bottom of the basket. This part was more tedious, than it was difficult.




...a litter of tiny knit kittens.
It's great to be a homeschooler.
4 comments:
Argh! Those kittens are so cute! I love your basket, I'll be linking.
I love this idea! How simple! I'm on a T-shirt recycling kick and I'll add this technique to my list! Thanks for sharing :)
So cute and I can always use another basket. I love repurposed things :-)
Thanks for the great idea with such clear instructions and photos! I am going to try this with old plastic bags that have holes and cannot be otherwise used!
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