The final snuggly project on top of a very cute boy!
First I made t-shirt yarn! After the first new t-shirts, a friend gave me a rotary cutter kit which made the project go faster. (There is an example of the how to - http://www.graciousrain.com/2010/09/28/t-shirt-yarn-tutorial/. There are lots of people who have posted about it, this is the basic process I followed.) I honestly liked strips that were .75 wide, but the rotary cutter mat I was graciously given didn't have that size marked out easily so I just went with 1 inch wide once I had the cutter.
I knitted in strips. Why strips? Because I didn't have circular needles that were big enough and I wanted bigger blocks of color. I also wanted it to be pretty portable.
Using size 18 needles, I cast on 23 stitches. (This made a strip about a foot wide.)
Row 1 - slide one stitch as to knit, knit two together, yarn over, knit two together, yarn over and continue until there are two stitches left. Yarn over, knit one, knit one.
Row 2 - same as row 1.
Continue until your strip is as long as you would like it.
When I ran out of one color, I used a square knot to tie the two ends together with about 1 inch ends. I left those hanging out randomly because I liked the whimsical look at it gave.
I kept going on a strip until it was from the floor to my chin - I'm about 5.5 feet tall. Then I cast off.
The size of the blocks vary based on the size of the t-shirts. A child medium is the smallest that I would be willing to cut up in the future. Even with a medium, you only get 4 or 5 rows.
I didn't count the number of rows that I made. When I was close with the second one, I just started sewing them together to figure out how many more rows that I needed. The yarn is stretchy and the size of the rows can vary based on how wide you cut your strips. This method worked best for me.
To put the rows together, I used t-shirt yarn and weaved a strand between the two strips using a crochet hook - really simple. (Maybe when I do another one I'll post pictures about that.) I started with the tail from one of the strips to start sewing the strips together and then tied on additional yarn in a square knot and kept going.
In all my blanket has 5 strips and 47 t-shirts in it! I will tell you that it is not a light blanket! Our personal stash made two rows and friends donated to finish... with enough to almost make another one too.
I'm happy to know that the t-shirt from 1991 that I couldn't bear to get rid of still has a place in my home, but not in my drawer. Here are the first two strips.
The humble beginnings...
