Tuesday, November 1, 2011

More T-Shirt Recycling!




It has been a VERY busy fall this year with sewing. We have had so many new retailers and we barely have time to breathe in between orders. I decided to carve out some time this weekend to tackle my laundry room. The laundry room has become the abyss of all things forgotten, unwanted or dirty. It really is a great room to throw things in. So I decided to jump in with both feet and found some cool things and some not so cool including some garlic bulbs I had intention of growing and they dried completely out into some kind of petrified hard to recognize thing. I found a big package of playsilks I had bought to dye up and a pile of old T-shirts James had put together for me to donate. Usually whatever James decides he can't wear anymore is in really sad shape and I would be ashamed to donate to anyone (OK, so the hummingbird shirt was NOT his :) ) I hated to just throw them away though. I also came across some yardage of great cotton terry toweling fabric that someone had graciously sent me along with some sweaters probably over a year ago. So, I cut rectangles out of the old shirts, cut a layer of toweling, and simply serged them together to make hand towels. Some of them I just serged together 2 layers of T-shirt. They turned out wonderfully and they work so well! We use hand towels in all of the offices and kitchen at work so these made great additions to our stash. Plus Caleb especially enjoys seeing his daddy's shirts turned into a towel and it seems like I don't have to remind him as often lately to wash his hands :) This is a great way to recycle and only takes a few minutes to do. Don't worry if you don't have toweling material! Putting 2 layers of T-shirt together makes a really absorbent and sturdy towel. Another idea is to use those flannel receiving blankets as a backing.