Upcycling: Turtle jersey rag rugs

Today’s blog post features another two upcycled turtle/tortoise rag rugs which  we made from old T-shirts or ‘tarn’ (T-shirt yarn). 🙂

The one in the blue-green shades measures about 50cm in diameter, the other one in reddish colours is a bit smaller and measures about 40cm in diameter.

Both rag rugs were made from 7 T-shirts (or jersey garments respectively). For a fat bathroom rug, tarn of 4cm/1.5inch width is best. You can also use tarn of a smaller width, but then your rug will be rather thin and not so comfortable to stand on. For one rug you will need about 7 T-shirts (or other jersey garments); if the garments have long sleeves or long legs, 6 pieces might be enough. If you want the turtle’s head and limbs to be of the same colour, then you will need 8 or 9 T-shirts.

The rugs were crocheted and it takes about 3.5 hours to make one (more if you have to cut your garments into tarn strips first). Use the tarn/colour you have the least material of for your central circle, and the tarn you have the most of for the edge of the rug.

(For a tutorial on how to make tarn, see a previous blog post of ours 🙂 ).

 

Upcycling: Turtle ‘tarn’ rug (how to upcycle T-shirts)

Today’s blog post features a turtle or tortoise rug which we crocheted from old T-shirts. 🙂

To do this, you will first have to make ‘tarn‘, which is short for T-shirt yarn. To make tarn, you will need several old T-shirts. First cut off all the parts that you do not want to have in your yarn, like the edge of the neck or any seam. Then cut the T-shirt into stripes of roughly the same width: for tarn that is about 1 cm (0.35 inch) wide (which makes a thin rug or potholder), cut parallel stripes into the T-shirt from one side that are 2 cm (0.7 inch) apart. However, it is important (!) that you don’t cut the T-shirt through the whole length but leave a continuous edge at the far side (your half-cut tarn ought to look a bit like a comb – one continuous edge from which the cut stripes originate). When you have cut the whole width of your T-shirt, turn your ‘comb-shaped’ T-shirt around, the continuous edge now facing towards you. Each of the stripes is still 2 cm (o.7inch) wide. Now cut these 2cm-wide stripes in half, starting from the continuous edge and leaving another continuous edge at the end of each stripe, so that you will have a continuous yarn. (If you cut the stripes through by accident or error, you will have to sew them together into a long piece of yarn!). If you want to have a really thick rug, make thicker tarn: our rug in the photo was made from tarn that is 4cm wide (1.8 inch), so each initial stripe we cut into the T-shirt was 8cm (3.25inch) wide. The turtle rug was made from 5 T-shirts (size L).

When you have made your tarn, crochet or knit your tarn into your desired shape, mixing and matching tarn of different colours as you please, e.g. creating a rainbow or stripe design. 🙂