100 Ways to Transform a T-shirt: (15)
FALSE KNITTING. I am actually really excited about this one, because it is something I’ve never seen before that I discovered all on my own. There are many ways you could potentially use this I feel like, and I have been playing around with it since I stumbled upon the technique this past Saturday night. There are two variations that I have discovered thus far, and two different styles or mediums to use this technique in (scarves and t-shirt back designs)
I’ll start by explaining the t-shirt back design method. This is where i kind of stumbled upon the technique as a whole. I made a halter out of a t-shirt and it was VERY loose and hung all the way down my back. It wasn’t so big of a deal, especially for a summer shirt, but i decided to play with it- and I struck gold. I started with the popular method where you cut horizontal slashes in the back, about 6 or so inches long, and you loop them in each other until you get to the bottom and you tie them off. Usually this design kind of goes in a v-shape, like this:
Note the difference, though: My slashes were all the same size, and the loops are made tight against the edge. After you loop the strips all the way to the bottom, simply loop the next to last around the very last, and go back UP, looping in the opposite direction. I really hope that makes sense. However, I don’t recommend doing the whole back of a shirt in this manner, because the top and bottom will look very odd to say the least. (Just take my word for it) So all you have to do is loop the srips into one another and go up and down a couple times, and you get the effect seen in the red tie dye picture shown. Cut and tie off the end loops to finish.
Discovering that this technique looks knit, and even has purl on the opposite side, I figured there HAD to be a way to do this large scale- and I figured it out.
For scarves, you’ll need the BIGGEST t-shirt you can find. I mean a 3X tall, if at all possible. Also, this will be easiest if you have something like a shower/curtain rod that you can set up somewhere to hang the scarf on while you’re working. I stretched mine between the wall and the door jamb in our bathroom:
First though, cut off the top and bottom of the shirt so you have just a big loop. I suggest though, that if you have a smaller shirt laying around, test it there first. It will be a much smaller scarf (the size of the blue one pictured) but still cute, and good for spring or summer. But it is much easier to get a hang of this method when you start small scale.
Ok, so for scarves, instead of cutting horizontal slashes, cut vertical slashes 1 cm to 1 in thick. Cut them all the way around, leaving about a 1 inch margin on top and bottom. It should look like this when you’re finished:
Now, put it on the rod set up, or if you find it easier just lay it flat on the floor. You can stretch the strips into tubes as well, if you wish. Then do the same method of looping one strip into the next. Here are some pictures to help:
It should look like this on the sides.
Now when you have looped all the way around, you have two options:
- Keep looping in the exact same manner. Loop the first strip in the cycle just as you would at any other time in the process. This process will not look like traditional knitting. This is how I did the design of the red scarf, shown twice in the photo set.
- For the traditional knit design, loop the last loop back around the first, and make loops in the other direction, as done in the shirt design method. It will look funny at the start/end point, but don’t worry, you’ll just wear that part in the back. The blue scarf was done in this method.
I recommend starting with option 1 just so you can get into the swing of the looping process. It can be tricky and look funny at first, you just have to keep going until you see it come together. Once you get a hang of it, it shouldn’t take more than an hour to fix one up, but it does take a bit of practice. Oh and you’re done when the strips become too small to loop any further, then snip the loop you end on and tie it around the following one. Voila :)
If you have ANY questions, let me know and I will do my best to clear up and vague-ities. Thank you so much for reading! And if you try it and they turn out great, don’t be afraid to submit them to me- I’d love to see how this idea grows in the crafting community of tumblr!
