When I was in CVS a couple of days ago, I grabbed a bunch of tee-shirts, 4 for $10. Happily I carried them home and immediately went to work hooking them into my next area on my alternative fabrics mat, Got Wool?. Here is my assessment of tees as hooking fabric.Cutting ease: on a scale from 1 to 5 with "1" being "Cuts like butter; easy as wool" and five being "So terrible don't bother," tee-shirt material gets a "5". Tee-shirt material will tear along the selvage but not across the selvage. When it is torn, it does not always tear straight. I was not successful tearing it thinner than 3/4" to 1". Once torn, the long edges curl so that you end up with something akin to inflexible cording rather than a strip of fabric. When I tried cutting it on my Bliss, it was too thin to keep a straight line and still curled. So I tried cutting it by hand across the selvage. It didn't curl, but the edges looked very raw, especially if there was any unevenness in the cut (which with this material and hand scissors was impossible to avoid).
Hooking ease: on a scale from 1 to 5 with one being "Hooks like a dream; easy as wool" and five being "Why am I trying this?", tee-shirt material gets a "5". I tried hooking the tee-shirt cords and they were so bulky they were difficult to work with and looked terrible. When I tried to open up the curled tube and cut along the center line to create a less bulky cord, it was easier to pull loops, but still looked terrible. When I tried to pull the strips I had cut by hand across the selvage, it was so thin that it looked miserable hooked and those raw uneven edges didn't help anything.
Overall look: on a scale from 1 to 5 where one is "gorgeous like hand-dyed wool" to "bad look even for a bad hair day", tee-shirt material gets a "5". In fact, it was so bad that I pulled out what I had hooked and abandoned the idea of using tee-shirts in my alternative fabric rug.
Average evalutation: 5 out of 5 or "Go and get some wool."
The moral of this story? Be smarter than I was. If you are going to try to hook with tee-shirts, make sure to buy sizes that will fit you and your family in case you decide to abandon the project too!
8 comments:
April,
I'm sorry you didn't enjoy the t-shirts. It may be that your bargain t-shirts were just made from an unusual fabric. Most t-shirts I've used will tear easily once you start at the hem. I always try to buy the ones made without seams so I can tear around and around - I get one long piece like yarn when I tear up to the sleeves. I've also learned that I have to tear the strips one half inch or less - any wider is impossible. The half inch strips curl so no raw edges show and they hook like an 8.
Phyllis
In England they use all kinds of things to hook with ~ 'jerseys' being one of them and I assume that's a t-shirt. I applaud your efforts, though!! I like using sweaters ~ that works really well!
Sorry that the tshirts didn't turn out to be as good a resource as fleece. Wonder if an old one worn and washed many times would do any better? Jo
A significant amount of hookers in Newfoundland use tee shirts and sweatshirt material and seemed to have no problems. I haven't tried it yet but Anne Kirby provided me with these instructions.
...it doesn't fray if you cut it with the grain. I have never had trouble with any of it... You need to cut a t-shirt, for instance, from the bottom up to the arm area and continue to cut this way. If you cut fleece along the bottom, it will curl up and thus, not suitable...
I might give it a try one day!
Don't know how they do it, because I tried all these ways suggested, and none worked well for me. When I cut from the bottom to the arm, I had a curly mess. When I cut straight across the bottom, it didn't curl, but it was too thin to make decent loops and the edges were raw looking. Sweatshirt material I haven't tried, but my bet is that it would work well.
Hi April,
I've had trouble hooking my Here Be Dragons t-shirt welcome mat project. It's 1/8 from being finished and I really didn't like doing it. I did it on rug warp because I wanted a washable rug--maybe monk's would have been better. If I do another t-shirt one I'll try the vertical cuts instead of the across ones and see if that helps.
Vickey in SC
Vickey, do you have a picture of what your t-shirt project looks like?
I am curently hooking a rug with T-shirts. These are all left over from my sons 4 years at camp. My rule of use it - has caused me to do this. I like the finished product but hooking with Tshirts is definitely a workout. I use 1 inch strips cut horizontally from a tshirt using a rotary cutter
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