Crafty Little Kitty: DIY Re-purposed Thrifty T-Shirt Scarf

This is an awesome scarf I made for my friend Jesse. It's made entirely from upcycled handpicked Thrift Store T-Shirts. This is an awesome project! Read on to see how it's done!

First Go to your favorite local Thrift Store and make your way into the T-Shirt Section. I already had a color scheme in mind of blacks and grays (I ended up adding a grey-blue shirt as well) It's a good idea to stick with similar shades so that the scarf has an overall flow to it. It is also a good Idea to stick with Larges and extra larges so you have a nice amount of fabric to work with. Jesse is a Musician and Photographer so I was thrilled to find some shirts that fit the bill. I also found a kangaroo- which was just cool. I went with three shirts (this is all you will need for a nice long scarf) and I also used shirts with a softer feel for comfort and overall style.

So- now you've got your T-shirts (notice I decided to not use the plaid shirt in the end) The next step is to cut them. I cut up the sides and around the arm seems for maximal use of fabric.

Next you will want to bust out your cutting board and rotary quilting cutter if you have one. (If you don't, that's totally fine- good ole sewing scissors will certainly do the trick)

I used my cutter to slice the fabric into large rectangles which can be sewn together. I recommend the scarf width to be 12-15 inches, length is a preference, but I like mine nice and long- 3 shirts (using only 5 out of 6 sections) will get you an approx 10 foot scarf. Cut of small strips that can be pulled and then sewn on to the scarf for decorative purposes.

Like a nerd- I totally forgot to take pics of the pining and sewing together of the pieces, but it's pretty basic stuff, put right sides together, pin and sew. I have a Serger so I sewed the seems together with my Serger. If you only have a good old fashioned machine you can use a straight stitch and then finish the seam with a wide zig zag (too small of a zig zag will cause the fabric to curl and give you a funky seam) Then I pressed them and used an understitch (see picture below for an example of an understitch) for a clean professional look. Finally I used my rotary cutter to cut the scarf edges where the seam is for a clean edge.

Once the scarf is pieced together you can take your small strips and place them decoratively. Parallel lines, going length-wise on the scarf, will look great and give nice texture, when the scarf is fully wrapped around the neck (see pictures below). I didn't want to over-do the decorative pieces, so I just did a few on both bottom sides of the scarf.

Make sure you pull the small pieces until the edges curl and then pin them and sew with a straight stitch down the middle. To finish pull all edges until they curl. Now you're done! Time to rock your sweet new Scarf!