Stone Age, Bronze Age, T-Shirt Age…

That last one may be less familiar to you … if you don’t know me. 

Each Age has several periods within, so let me call this first one The Weaving Period.

Some years ago I got a bunch, okay, let’s say “a lot” of (didn’t count but probably about 200) free t-shirts from a charity resale shop.  These were ones that were either frayed, stained, or had writing that made them virtually unsalable, like “Jepp Family Reunion 2003” and things like that.

Note that since then, the shop has started selling them as rags to some kind of business, a machine shop, I think - a good move for them, but not so great for wannabe freecycler/upcyclers.

I needed a lot because while leading a girls’ club, I came across directions in Family Fun magazine for making a rug using old t-shirts and a hula hoop.  That magazine has been sold and I couldn’t find a link to this project, however a search with those key words will get you the how-to. I suggest watching a couple different ones. If you wants tips on how we did ours, shoot me an email.

We made the rugs with the girls and they were fun to do and turned out nice.  However, I still had a zillion t-shirts.   Since a family can only use a certain number of rugs the size and shape of a hula hoop, I started thinking of other projects.

I could use some colorful basket-ish bowls, I thought.

So, I started another rug and when it got to about eight inches across, I released the two ends of the hoop from where they had been joined, overlapped the ends to make a smaller circle, and taped them in place.   As I continued to weave, the bottom of the bowl sides formed.  After a few rows, I made the circle a little smaller and taped it again.  I wove until I had a nice sized bowl, and tied off the ends. 

That one was so cute, I made another, and another.

Now I use one as our napkin holder, one of them happens to be the right size for a clear bowl I have, and the other I just use for this and that.    

Now here’s where things get crazy.  And you will agree – crazy.  About a year later I needed a long-term project for my daughter and me to work on as part of her school program.  Some suggestions were to make a full size quilt with fabric, or a queen size afghan with crochet or knitting, or something else like that.

Hmmm, what about all those t-shirts we still had?  I considered joining several hula hoops into one really large round loom, big enough to make an area rug.  The problem with that was that the “loom”  would not be stable and it would be too hard to manage.

What else, what else?  How could we make it square or rectangular and also sturdy?  Lightbulb moment! We have some pieces of PVC pipe and connectors that we used for staging (more on that in another post).  So we made a rectangle and started weaving a bedspread. 

Yes, it did take a looong time, but that was the idea anyway so not a problem.  It was sturdy enough to tip on its side and slide out of the way onto our enclosed front porch between work times. Again, no problem there.

But, here’s where all the brilliance of that bright idea went dark.  When it was finished and removed from the frame, we realized that it was heavy.  Very heavy. Too heavy to put on someone’s bed without suffocating the person.

Yes, it could be a rug, but for one thing, we didn’t have need for a rug like that, and for another thing, there are light colors in it so on the floor it would get dirty and would be impossible to wash.

So, its home has been a plastic bag in the attic.  Getting it out now for pictures, I’m thinking that I’ve got to find a place for it somewhere, somehow.  Maybe there’s something I can re-make it into? If you have any ideas, please let me know.

After that, believe it or not, we still had t-shirts.  Which left the door open for the Bedroom Re-Do Period, which will be chronicled in the next post.  Fortunately, that period has a couple of projects that you might actually like to do and have a use for!