Potholders From Recycled Long Sleeved T-shirts

You can make some great woven potholders from up-cycled clothing! The potholders I just made from t-shirts, well I should specify and say actually from the sleeves of my daughter’s old t-shirts, are so great I just had to share this idea with you. Plus I do believe that I sort of promised I’d try this out, so of course once again instead of actually cleaning for Passover I’m crafting with things I find a long the way! Well, I did go through some baskets of neglected laundry, which is how I found my materials, so a tiny bit of progress was made. Ha ha ha. Let’s just keep it between you and me, shall we?

So while you’re cleaning out the closets as a part of Spring cleaning or Passover preparations, do think about setting aside a few articles for some crafting fun. I’m quite sure you’ll have more restraint that I do, and you’ll be able to try this project out later when all the work is done, or at least hand it over to some kids old enough to do it all themselves?

I actually made two potholders from my finds from the neglected laundry basket. The pink and light green potholder was made from pink girl’s knit tights, and the sleeves of a long-sleeved size girl’s 8 t-shirt. The second t-shirt was made entirely from long sleeve t-shirt sleeves, and I should add, that with t-shirt material you can get a nicer sized potholder since it’s less stretchy than tights and much less stretchy than store bought loops.

You’ll Need:

• a potholder loom
• up-cycled clothing for loop making: kid’s long sleeved t-shirts, adult or child sized tights and pantyhose of any kind

How To:

1. Cut off the feet of your tights, and the cuffs of your long sleeved t-shirts, and simply cut 1/2″ slices along the length of the leg or sleeve. If any of your loops are a bit too long, you can always cut them and tie them a bit shorter if need be at the end of a row, I did this a few times.
2. Stretch the loops so that they curl, and you’re ready to go. In the photo above you’ll see the pink tights loops already stretched and the t-shirt sleeve loops un-stretched.
3. Set up your loom by stretching loops across the potholder in one direction, and weaving the loops across in the other direction. 
4. For a striped potholder like mine, set up the loom with a pink loop on every other tooth, and when weaving, weave with a pink loop on every other row.
5. For a checkerboard pattern, examine the photo below, and set up the loom with half white and half yellow and then weave with half white and then half yellow.
6. Remove the potholder from the loom by pulling one loop through the next, keeping in mind that the fourth side can get a bit difficult as the potholder tends to come off the loom and you have to do a bit of reweaving to finish it off. So it goes unless you make your own loom with tall nails, which would probably solve that problem!

Have a great time exploring potholder weaving with up-cycled clothing! And yes, you can make loops from t-shirt fabric by cutting elongated ellipses with a slit cut down the middle, though it’s surely more time intensive. When I give that method a try I’ll be sure to share it with you, not to worry. Happy Passover cleaning, I’m off to round up the kids to start on their rooms, wonder what treasure we’ll find there?

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