Ruffled Tshirt Scarf Tutorial

It was a crafty weekend over here.

One of the projects we tackled was the making of scarves... from old tshirts!

We made two different kinds. 1. Ruffly and 2. Braided.

First, the ruffly one. Complete with super awesome paint effects that hopefully make it clearer.

Ruffly Tshirt Scarf:

Take your old tshirt and lay it out flat.

Cut off the bottom hem.

Cut straight up one of the sides, about 3 or 4 inches.
Then start cutting a strip across on the top layer only- not through both layers.

When you're cutting, cut at a slight upward angle instead of straight across. You're going to be cutting in a spiral up the tshirt- ending up with one big long strip. When you get to a side, just flip it over and continue cutting, maintaining a fairly constant thickness.

Once you've cut all the way up to the sleeves, there will be a part of the big long strip that was originally the bottom of your tshirt. Cut off the wonky part where you started the spiral so that you have a smooth edge.

 

You will end up with a long piece of fabric- and you want it as long as possible. Also, don't worry if your strip is not the same thickness all the way down- once you make the ruffles, you won't even be able to tell.

Next is the fun part. Make the ruffle by setting the sewing machine tension at its highest setting, and choose the longest stitch. Just feed the fabric through and sew right down the middle- and it will make a ruffle- no fancy feet needed. Also, don't backstitch.

We found that the combination of highest tension/ longest stitch created a ruffle that was too tight- so we pulled out the threads and tried it again at a slightly lower tension.

 very intense work, this ruffle-making is

Once you've got a ruffle that you like, set the tension and stitch length back to normal and sew back over your middle line, this time making sure to backstitch.

 

*While the ruffles are pretty stable at this point, they are still move-able if you tug.

To get a ruffle that will definitely stay put, you need to stabilize it with a piece of plain fabric down the middle, or make your ruffles using elastic. But that was too much fuss for our interests.

So there you have it; a ruffled scarf using an old tshirt.