T-Shirt Yarn: A Tutorial

After I finished the Scottie Pillow and the Scottie Jr. Pillow, I had to get a hold on what else I was going to do while I was home for winter break.

One thing that I learned three Thanksgivings ago was to create t-shirt yarn! You might be wondering what t-shirt yarn is...it is exactly what you are thinking: yarn made out of t-shirts! I figured that while I was home for winter break, I could create a tutorial as to how I create my t-shirt yarn! Please just comment on this post if you have any questions!

Paige's T-Shirt Yarn Tutorial
Materials:
One t-shirt (no side-seams)
Scissors

your materials!

Step 1: Take your t-shirt and fold it in half

Step 2: Cut off the sleeves and the hem at the bottom of the t-shirt

Make sure to cut off the seams!

Step 3: Refold the rectangle so that you have a one inch overlap

Sleeves and hems removed

Refold the t-shirt so there is about 1 inch in between both creases

Step 4: Now it is time to cut! To make my strips of yarn even, I cut just the ends (the opposite end of Step 3) about one inch up, one inch apart

This will help guide your more-even cutting

Step 5: Now, you take your guides and cut all the way up to the top of the t-shirt BUT stop when you reach the first crease on top. If you keep cutting all the way until the end, you will not have a continuous strip of t-shirt yarn

This is where I stopped cutting (sorry for the bad manicure!)

Finish cutting all of the strips following the instructions in Step 5. Your t-shirt rectangle should look like this:

And if you unfold it (which you should for Step 6), your shirt should look like this:

Step 6: Unfold the t-shirt at the top, uncut section

To do this, you want to cut diagonally down this part of the shirt. To start the beginning, cut from the top to the first cut on the left. Then, cut from the cut to the right to the cut from the left.

This is how you want to cut the yarn, diagonally

Once you get to the end, you want to cut the last cut from the right diagonally to the end of the shirt at the left. Then you have one continuous strip of cut t-shirt, approximately one inch thick!

Step 7: Pull the strip of t-shirt and let it curl up.

See the curled-in ends?

Step 8: Roll the curled-up t-shirt yarn and TA-DA! You've just finished cutting your t-shirt yarn! Let your creativity roll :)

One ball of t-shirt yarn!

And that's it--my first tutorial! I have used this type of yarn to create many blankets for both my house and gifts for friends. What do YOU make out of t-shirt yarn?

xoxo
Paige

ps. if you have any questions about the tutorial, please feel free to contact me! xo

Meet My New Friend: Scottie Jr.!

After finishing my dear friend Scottie, I was itching to create another pillow. The complexity of creating Scottie, but the simplicity of it made me want more. So, that's exactly what I did.

But, I didn't think that I had enough yarn to make enough of the "normal" sized squares, so I attempted to figure out a smaller square, which TADA! I created the first round of a typical granny square to create the Scottie Jr. Pillow:

I created 6 of the squares in 9 different colors (Scottie had 9 squares in 6 different colors):

an "artsy" picture of all the squares

an overhead view of all the squares

I used the exact same technique as the Scottie Pillow to sew it altogether and got this:

So officially meet my two friends: Scottie (left), and Scottie Jr. (right)

Check back later: I'm making my first ever TUTORIAL!

xoxo
Paige

The Scottie Pillow: A Christmas Miracle

To all my readers who celebrate this holiday, I wanted to start off and wish you all a Merry Christmas!

I spent my Christmas Eve Day in the lovely New York City, as seen in this awesome picture of me with the Rockefeller Christmas Tree:

this was at 8am...when no one is around to ruin good picture opportunities!

After walking around the fabulous city all day, in and out of all the cool stores dressed up for the holidays, it was time to get back to my crochet Scottie pillow. I finished sewing all of the squares together, along with the band of the thirty white squares:

side 1 (no clue why its sideways, but you get the picture!)

side 2

these thirty sewed squares looks kind of like a long scarf

After ALL of this sewing, there was still more to be done (I was determined today, if you could not tell). I sewed each square of the thirty white-ish squares to one of the sides, as shown here:

side with the white squares attached!

Trying to get the second side attached with the backside in was very tricky. I kind of manipulated the white attached squares, turned around and sewed, if that makes sense--sorry, I didn't get a picture of that part!

Here is the wrong-side out almost completely sewed Scottie Pillow (whole on the top is unsewed for stuffing!)

All what was left was to stuff, and IT'S FINALLY DONE!

So, here it is, folks. My first winter break project is COMPLETE!

Scottie in his new home-the couch in my den!

Come back to see what winter break project #2 will bring for me!

xoxo
Paige

Oh What a Beautiful Morning

Good morning, readers! It is 9am on a Wednesday and I am UP...this is the earliest I have been up since I got home from school!

Yesterday, in the midst of shoveling the never-ending snow two different times times, I got a LOT of crocheting done in preparation for putting together my Scottie Dog Pillow! I finished crocheting the blue and yellow squares, sewed in the ends of all of the colors, and pieced each side of the pillow together (attached with bobby pins of course). These squares are just waiting to get pieced together!

Finished Side 1

Finished Side 2

I started working on the 30-square band, here is the progress I made last night:

Sorry this one's blurry! I'll get a better one later, I promise :)

My goal is to finish the square band by tomorrow night, so I can start using the extra yarn to stitch together the pillow. The ultimate goal is this entire project to be done before Sunday night!

Let's see how this goes!

xoxo
Paige

Snow, SVU, and a Scottie Pillow

Since I'm home for winter break, I find myself sleeping until I'm the only one in my house. But today was an extra special day to wake up at 10:30...it was SNOWING!

my backyard as the snow keeps falling!

So, what else would I do on a snowy day? Binge-watch one of my all-time favorite shows, Law and Order: Special Victims Unit, and of course, work on my first winter break crochet project, a Patchwork Scottie Dog Pillow, inspired by this post.

the most fabulous marathon

I have been crocheting these adorable little squares in preparation to put my pillow together:

So far, I have done about 36 squares, with only 18 more squares for the body of the pillow to go! Then, the next part is to crochet 30 more squares for the band and then I can sew it all together.

Here is my progress so far:

Scottie Pillow Side 1

Scottie Pillow Side 2

If you're wondering what the random yellow lines are, I tend to piece my projects together with bobby pins--they're a lot cheaper than stitch markers at craft stores!

Check back later to see my progress after my snowy day inside!

xoxo
Paige

Welcome to Oh So Stitchy!

Hello everyone, and welcome to my blog! Please bear with me, as I am new to all of this; I am just a college girl who loves to create things out of string!

I figured for my first blog post, I would kind of talk about why I decided to become a craft blogger. I imagine that in future postings, I will keep you all updated on the projects I am working on, and my experiences in the knitting and crocheting community.

My name is Paige, and I am a Pinterest Addict. Yes, I admit that openly...I (sometimes) sit in some of my big lecture classes and "Pin" items on items on items. Through this website, I found that I LOVE to a. Pin anything that I think I could (or could not) make out of yarn and b. read the blogs (that are in English) that I find these yarn pins on. But the thing I always noticed about these blogs? They were always written by 30-something, stay-at-home, happily-married women. And that was something that I could NOT relate to, as a teenager, having a fresh start at a University. This craft that we do is not just for grandmas or for moms, it effects different people at different stages in our lives. Me? As of now, I'm just a freshman in college. I don't have all the time in the world to create, I make time to sit down and knit or crochet my latest project.

So, I welcome you on my journey. Let's see how this goes, folks. 

xoxo
Paige