T-Shirt Yarn Necklaces

As I have mentioned in a previous post Workshop on Finding Meaning in What We Wear, our Simple Living Toowoomba group was fortunate to have Jane Milburn show us how she upcycles fabrics bought from the Op Shops. Jane had brought along some of her outfits including a T-shirt yarn necklace which looked rather easy to make so I thought I would do a bit of experimenting with the yarn cut from my old gym T-shirts.

Well, one thing led to another as I pinned everything I could find on these necklaces on Pinterest and before long I had T-shirt yarn everywhere and too many ideas in my head about what type to start with.

 

This was the first one I made to which I added an old necklace that I had never worn and had pulled to pieces in case I was inspired one day to rethread it in a different way. It was a little difficult to find many tutorials on how to actually make these necklaces as most of the photos pinned to Pinterest are of those for sale but they can also give you ideas if you can work out how they have been made. 

 The Thinking Closet  has a fairly simple YouTube tutorial if you can get past the beginning of the video which put me off a little at first as I was impatient to get to the tutorial but just fast forward that if you are also a grumpy old woman. Also Max and Me Designs   has a tutorial which was also helpful.

This is a work in progress and I am not sure if I like it as it might be a bit too busy. What do you think?

 This style is called 'The Chain' apparently and I spent ages trying to work out how it was done especially when some of the necklaces on Pinterest like this one had no join that I could see. Eventually I realised that you could buy seam free T-shirts so there is no need to worry about covering up the join. Unfortunately I didn't have any of them and the menfolk didn't either :-)

I found the instructions on The Chain by Monkey Tee Monkey Do  so followed them. 

Just put your two lots of yarn on top of each other, hold one end and with the other hand make one twist....

....then twist again....

....and bring the bottom part up to the top so that all the seams are together. In the first photos I have already covered one lot of seams as I was experimenting with something so just disregard that as ....

 

....all the seams need to be covered together. You just have to cut out a scrap of fabric and give the sides a little pull so that they curl in a little and then fold over the seams a few times so they aren't visible. Then I sewed the seam as neatly as could but some people use glue but I imagine the necklace will need washing at some stage so used thread instead. 

This makes quite a simple necklace although I think it will be quite warm so will be worn instead of a scarf in winter I would imagine. You can find some other tutorials on Monkey Tee Monkey Do if you are interested. 

I also came across several necklaces which use a knot as a centrepiece so I had a go at trying to work out how to do the knot from photos and then found several YouTube videos which show the process (which aren't in English by the way) like this one by Manetes Bones.  I still have to practise this one a bit more though as I tend to tie myself in knots. LOL!

If you do a search on Pinterest for T-shirt necklaces or T-shirt scarves you can see how varied they are. I have some on my Pinterest T-Shirt Yarn Necklaces board and there might be something there that you would like to make. 

If you don't have any T-shirt and want to buy some from the Op Shop then try to find them in the mens' section and look for X-large size. I would love to know if you have made any of these and perhaps you could add some tips in the comments if you have.