Rug Woven From T-shirts

T-shirts are a great source for recycle projects.

I was inspired by Make a braided t-shirt rug by suzelac to make my own braided t-shirt rug..

Also helpful was an instructable for T-shirt yarn by jessyratfink

Fun..

So next I decided to make more t-shirt yarn and weave a run.
I don't know a lot about weaving but I had and idea to lasercut some parts and see what I can do..

My t-shirt supply was depleted from my previous project so I went to Goodwill and got several XXXL t-shirts... trying to get only all cotton. I washed them and then made t-shirt yarn...

Simple weaving (the kind I remember from making pot holders in grade school) is a matter if one up - one down.

My thought was to make some sort of device to hold the strands of yarn... I think this is called a heddle?

I drew it in Illustrator and cut it out on a scrap of acrylic at TechShop. I also made four yarn holders for the yarn that goes back and forth. (note in the picture, there were not enough for all the yarn colors so I also made some out of cardboard).

I didn't make a proper loom frame - I used a variety of pieces of scrap wood to tie something together... using my dining room table as a base (this is great encouragement to get the project done!)

My estimate for the rug dimensions was roughly 24 inches by 36 inches.. The hettle was 24 inches..
and the setup on the table was approximately 40 inches long by 30 inches wide.

Each of the 6 colors of yarn was

• tied on an end,
• looped through a slot on the heddle,
• looped over the back bar,
• threaded through a hole in the heddle
• then tied at the return end.

then the next color.. through all the colors.
repeat with the colors.. until all holes and slots on the heddle are filled.

1) Threaded loom

2) Heddle lifted up and wood slat pulled through, then yarn (purple) pulled through
2a) Close up of Heddle up showing how yarn separates

3) Purple yarn pushed thight. Heddle pushed down and wood slat pulled through, then yarn pulled through
3a) Close up of Heddle up showing how yarn separates

4) Two rows of yarn pushed tight...

the process continues with more yarn...

Different colors of the yarn were wound on holders.

I lifted up the heddle. This lifted every other yarn.

I slid a narrow wooden stick (a wooden ruler would work) and then turned it on it's side.
This gave me space to insert my yarn on the holder and pull it through to the other side.
The wood stick was used to snug the yarn close to the edge..

Next, I pushed down up the heddle. This separated every other yarn (opposite from before).

When the entire length of the rug had been woven, the ends were cut from the end wood frames.

Each end was tied off to the one next to it.

The side edges were cleaned up by using a crochet hook with extra yard around the loose edges.

The final product

The pattern of the rug is from repeating the same sequence of colors in both direction of the rug.

Thanks to instructables for inspiration and being a great resource!

And my other great resource, TechShop!