This week's car boot finds being upcycled

The weather has been so bad recently the car boots sales locally have either not been on or really short of sellers. This Sunday I did manage to grab a few bargains, which was a relief as I am very low on stock and have a craft fair at Port Solent a week on Sunday.

Amongst the many purchases this week were a pile of picture frames in various states:

A mirror - well past its best !

 & an old London A to Z

The A to Z provided the paper to decoupage the mirror frame, the effect worked really well and I tried to keep in some well know landmarks

& here is the upcycled result !

Other work now in progress  - a frame decoupaged with a map of France, and one done with music

Recycling T-Shirts

Quick update on t-shirt recycling that I started earlier in the week. I've made lots of t-shirt yarn !! :)

So then there was a bit of experimenting with various plaiting techniques, but the best effect I have found sp far is using finger knitting. Four finger knitting was used to create the chunky pink one and two finger knitting was used for the slimmer black one. 

If I can find enough t-shirts and interesting buttons this is definitely a new product. I think the finger knitting would create great key fobs as well - I though trying of trying to do football team colours for Christmas.

Hope the weathers fine this weekend so I can get to some car boot sales !!!

How to #1 : Creating Yarn from Old T-Shirts

This is the first of a series of 'How to's'. I'm always on the look out for new ways of reusing, recycling and upcycling, so whenever I try out something new I will try to remember to show everyone how it turned out here. This time I am trying out making T-Shirt Yarn. Once made the yarn can be knitted, knotted, crocheted or plaited into just about anything you fancy. I found a few tutorials online showing how to make the T-Shirt Yarn, the 2 most useful ones were:


http://mousechirpy-polkadotpineapple.blogspot.co.uk/2008/03/tutorial-t-shirt-yarn.html

http://knitting.about.com/od/yarn/ss/t-shirt-yarn.htm



Step 1: Grab an old t-shirt - ones without a side seam are best. You also need a decent area without graphics as the print will make the yarn not curl at the end.

Step 2: Cut off the bottom hem and across the t-shirt below the armpits ( or far enough down to remove any print)

Step 3: You should now have a tube of fabric. With the closed edges top and bottom, cut strips, around 1 inch wide from the bottom to the top. Leave a 1 inch margin at the top.

Step 4: To create a continuous loop of yarn you now need to join up the loops of fabric. Insert your arm (or someone elses arm) through the top of the fabric to seperate the 2 layers. Make a cut from the right side of the top of the first strip on one side to the right side of the bottom of the second strip on the other side. (see dotted line in picture below)

Step 5: Once finished you should end up with one long line of fabric.

Step 6: To create the curled around yarn that can be used. Hold the first part of the fabric between your hands with a 10 inch gap and give the fabric a tug, then  move along the fabric with your hands giving a tug every 10 inches or so.

Step 7: Roll in to a ball to use in a project

This was my first attempt at this and it was really easy - now on the hunt for some colourful t-shirts !!!!