Ta-Dah! T-Shirt Scarves!

T-Shirt Scarves, a How-To

To begin, head to the Goodwill, a garage sale or any other place with low-cost t-shirts.  You'll need one shirt per scarf, or more if you're making flowers, bows, etc.  Look for shirts sized XL or larger, and with limited writing/printing on the front.  I like to buy an array of colors so as to have more to work with.  From there, take your t-shirts home, wash them (do what you like, but I wash them!), then lay them on a flat surface.  

Step1: Cut off the hem of the shirt.  Cutting does not need to be exact (I received a poor grade in "cutting" in Pre-school.  It's stuck with me.  Luckily, this requires little skill).

Step 2: After removing the hem, continue cutting 1 to 1 1/2 inch strips parallel to the hem line.  Again, there's no need to be exact.

 Cut all the way up to the arms.  The number of strips you get will depend upon the length of the t-shirt and the width of your strips.

Step 3: After your strips are cut, pick up each cord and individually pull it in opposite directions.  This should produce a "cord" with each narrow strip.

The pulling process--what fun!

Completed cords

 Step 4: Next, cut the "hems" off of the t-shirt sleeves, just as you did on the regular hem.  Then, cut similar strips running parallel to the sleeve hem.

Stretch these cords as you did the regular ones, then cut out the hem.  These will serve as the ties to bind up your full length cords.

Completed cords and ties

Step 5: From here, you can go in a few different directions.  

Variation A (not pictured): Use the shorter cords to tie together all of the longer cords, wrapping the shorter tie around all cords several times to bind them.  Double-knot and, ta-dah!  T-shirt scarf.

Variation B: Take one of the longer cords and wrap it around your hand several times, until the entire cord is wrapped.  Repeat with remaining cords.

Once cord "circles" are made, take two of them and tie them together with one of the shorter ties.  If the t-shirt you used had a seam on one or both sides, I recommend tying directly over the seam (if possible) so as to hide it.

Look how your scarf is coming along!

Step 6: Repeat until all "circles" are tied together, creating one long loop.

To make the "bow" effect, use a t-shirt of contrasting color for two of the loops.  I made this successfully with red and green t-shirts as well for a pretty adorable Christmas Scarf.

A Big Ol' Christmas Bow!

Easy-Peasy!

For more fun, play around with combining Variation A and Variation B.  Use long cords for the main part of the scarf.  Instead of simply tying them with a short cord, make three small "circles," wrapping the cords around 2-3 fingers.  These are small enough to look like roses.  Three of these "roses" can then be tied together, then over the "tying" cord in a grouping.

Roses?