As the weather gets colder, scarf is “a must” accessory for me. While I love cowls, it’s just as easy to throw on a scarf and run out the door. I need to protect my neck from the chill, otherwise, I am not a happy camper in the cold.
And since I made a t-shirt hat yesterday, I decided to use up the white t-shirt remnants to make a scarf. Obviously, you can use any color you want and mixing colors would be fun too. Also, if you can score a wide enough piece, you won’t need to have to do any patch work like I did. Although, I think it has its own charming shabby chic look, don’t you think?
How to make a T-Shirt Scarf
Cut across the width – against the cross grain – of the shirt. The width of the shirt will be the length of the scarf. So if you are going to sew a few pieces together, like I am, you have to make sure you line up the grains properly. Cross grain will stretch more and that’s what we want. Cut any other parts of the shirt that you can salvage and cut out all seams. See how the sewn edges are curled up? If you use the width of the shirt as the length of the scarf, the edges of the scarf will look like this.
Decide what dimensions you want your scarf to be. I made mine 12″ wide but you can make it as wide as you want. I wouldn’t go less than 12″ since it may be too skinny. Make the length of the scarf whatever length you want too so you know how much t-shirts you need to cut. Do you want rounded ends or pointy ends? Or do you want to leave it square. Whatever strikes your fancy. Who says that anymore? Oh, I did.
Let’s start sewing!
Set your sewing machine to the widest zigzag setting and smallish size stitches. Let half of the zigzag stitch land on the fabric and let the other half, off of the fabric. See where the presser foot is hanging half and half on the fabric? Doing this will wrap the stitches around the edge of the fabric and will give you a nice clean ruffled edge. As you sew, stretch the fabric a little towards you, without pulling it too much. That’ll aid the shirring effect even more. I held the back piece of the fabric while pulling the front piece to guide along so that I am not pulling too much on it.
Practice on a scrap of t-shirt to see which setting you will be happy with. The smallest setting was too tight for me so I made it slightly bigger and it worked. Each machine is different, so play with your machine to see which setting is the best for your fabric.
Oh, be prepared to use a lot of thread. I prepared two bobbins, just in case. I hate it when I run out of thread in the middle of a project. I’m sure I’m not alone.
After you have two long panels of the scarf, front and back, take the panels and lay them on top of each other – with the wrong sides together. I know, that freaked me out too but trust me, you need to have the right sides on the outside. Be sure that the cross grains of the panels are lined up in the same direction. You’ll know they are right when you sew and the edges are really stretchy.
After you’ve sewed all the way around the panel, you’ll end up with curly Q edges.
And voila!
So what do you think? It’ll go nicely with my hat, right? I may go back to the hat and make the edges curly like the scarf. I think that’ll make it a smashing pair.
If you want unfinished edges but still want ruffled look, you can make something like this by Make It Love It.
Image used with permission by Makeitandloveit.
See you tomorrow on Day 17th! We are almost there. Only ONE week until Christmas! HOoray!
