I know what you’re thinking–you’re thinking, “t-shirt what?” You heard me. I said, T-shirt yarn. Get a load of this…

Oh, yeah…it’s cotton “yarn” made from a spiral cut T-shirt. I first saw this done over at Polka Dot Pineapple and was intrigued because, well…

does everyone on earth have a huge pile of orphan T-shirts that nobody wears, but they can’t seem to part with…

or is it just me?

So let’s get real green and do something useful with some of them…shall we?

Start with a regular t-shirt that has lived a good life…no guilt now. It’s going on to a better place…really.

Cut off the bottom hem.

Now cut the top off just under the sleeves…

so you have a tube of fabric.

Fold it nearly in half, leaving the under side sticking out about an inch.

Now cut from right to left all the way up to and just past the top fabric, but leave the one inch margin of the lower fabric uncut. Repeat about 1 inch apart. Now unfold the fabric…

it should look like this.

The easiest way for you to hold the fabric and cut it into one continuous strip is to slide your arm through the two layers of fabric 1 inch uncut margin running along the top of your arm. I drew dotted lines  showing where you’ll cut your fabric–but you don’t need to draw the lines. You’ll be amazed at how fast you can figure this out and it’s really fun too, and for some reason deeply satisfying.

When you’re finished cutting, you’ll have one long, long, strip of fabric. Are you ready to make it more “yarn” like? Here goes!

Going down the entire length of your fabric, take a hold of it by one end and gently stretch it. It will magically curl up and behave it’s self just like it should. Very obedient stuff, I tell you.

Next, roll it into a ball and think of the stuff you can knit or crochet or weave with it. I’ve seen trivets, handbags and rugs…

but that color is too…too…orange not to be used properly.

Fear not. I’ll show you as soon as it’s finished. In the meantime–

go dig out the old shirts. The stack’s about to shrink.