Fabric Yarn- Barbie Clothes, Finger Knitting, and Braided Tee Shirt Rugs

Excuse the cell phone pictures on this post, since it was a 5 day weekend due to snow, I was home with my 6 and 7 year old stepdaughters and we did a lot of crafting that I wanted to write about.  A year or two ago, I went on a fabric yarn making frenzy and cleaned out the Goodwill of about 20+ tee shirts and 2-3 sheets and made 6 or 8 balls of yarn.  For a great video tutorial on how to make continuous tee shirt yarn, view this youtube video.  My intentions had been to crochet a rug (which I made a small one and gave to my little cousin), flowers, place mats and whatever else I could think of.  Eventually I ran out of steam and put it away.  Well I found the giant box of yarn and leftover tee shirts while setting up my craft room and was inspired all over again.  This time the girls got into the box and were so excited by all of the giant yarn that they too had grand ideas for it all.  I recently taught them how to weave on a homemade weaving loom and so they asked if they could weave with it.  This reminded me of a skill I possessed but had long since forgotten I knew it: finger knitting! The pulled tee shirt yarn, shown in the tie dye blue and brown balls would be the perfect size for them and would make something quickly (since they are easily bored by projects that take more than one sitting to complete).

This is the finger knit scarf that I made, it took me less than 10 minutes.

So, I found this video to remind myself of how to start the knitting and showed it to the girls and we got started.  They loved it!  They made some of all different colors as scarfs for their various stuffed animals.  When they got bored of that, they taped the long strands of yarn from wall to wall in their rooms and pretended they were giant spider webs.  Hey, I say whatever gets their imagination going, and it was funny to see their rooms covered in the yarn. 

While they were busy finger knitting, I decided to take some of the tee shirts that I had not yet cut up and made strips of about a yard and created this awesome braided tee shirt rug.  Here is a decent tutorial video I found on youtube that will show you the process.  The only thing I did differently was instead of sewing the strips together when I needed to add more yarn, which was time consuming, I used the slit-cut and knot method as shown by option # 2 in this video.  Any of the methods work, it is just a matter of preference.  I found this to be the quickest way, and I didn't mind the knot showing in my rug.  So far I have used 3 large size tee shirts (for the 3 different colors in the braid) cut in 1" strips and it has made a 20" round rug.  I did start the rug as an oval shape with about a 4" start length however the rug has rounded out completely as it grew in size.  My only complaint about using the oval shape in the beginning is that about half way through, the rug started to buckle a little.  I think because the tee shirt material is stretchy, as I add more, it will flatten out or be able to be stretched out.  I am guessing that if I had started with a round pattern, this would not have been an issue.  I would like to get 3 more tee shirts to at least double the size of the rug.  At $1/tee shirt from Goodwill, you can't beat the price and it has been fun and quick! Excuse the blurry picture again.  This one is being made out of two flat bedsheets with 1" strips.  Although using larger strips would have made it go faster, I liked the look of the smaller braided strips.  I have used up an entire spool of thread on this one which is why I stopped.  It currently measures at 20x23.  I used a 7" start strip on this one which seems to have kept the oval shape a little better but I suspect by the time I am finished, it too will round out.  I have also experienced some buckling in this one, but less of it.  There is no stretch to the bed sheet material so it will not stretch out.  I did see in one youtube video where someone had sewn a bath towel to the bottom of it.  I wonder if I were to find a stiffer/thicker material like this for the bottom that this might help flatten out the buckling as well.  

There are several things I liked about using the bedsheet.  The fabric frayed a lot as I was cutting and braiding it (which was a pain in the process) but has a beautiful subtle texture that I really like once finished.  The material is flatter and since I only used two colors that were very similar, the braids blend more and I love the texture that combination created.  I would say I went through about 3/4 of the sheet material and would like to also make this rug much larger.  I may need another sheet to finish it. 

Having cut up the tee shirts, the only part I didn't use were the hems and the sleeves, which I'd saved. One of the girls had complained that she lost Ken's shirt and I thought about all the barbie clothes I'd been handed down as a kid and fondly remember that someone had meticulously sewn some of the clothes.  I didn't have a pattern and not even knowing if it would work, I quickly laid the dolls down on the sleeves of the tee shirts, traced them onto the fabric with a marker and sewed then cut out the shape.  They took me all of 5 minutes (hence the sloppy lines and ill fit) but the girls were ecstatic and asked me to make more of them.  Going forward, I would definitely find a pattern and spend more time to perfect them, but it made the girls happy and that was all that mattered.  They couldn't wait to show their daddy when he got home from work.

I don't remember Ken looking this creepy when I was a kid.  I liked him better when his hair was plastic and his joints didn't bend.

I don't think there is much creepier than a Monster High doll.  They have giant heads, long torsos, huge butts and all of their joints come apart.  Super creepy!

As you can see, this Monster High doll is missing several body parts...they kept popping off when I tried to put the clothes on them.  Ew.  Either way, just tracing the bodies directly onto the fabric worked pretty well when the body parts would stay on hah!