Old shirts and happy families

‘Tis the season to be jolly! Well…Almost 😊 

In my opinion, there is always a cozy and warm feeling around handmade gifts. Imagine your friend googling DIY gifts until their instinct goes: “This is the one.” Think of them painting you a stormy sea, searching for cute pictures and framing them, or simply baking your favorite dessert; investing time in making you happy, and vice versa.  

Presents are a symbol of thought, an interest in others’ well-being. And even though consumerism took a materialistic and greedy twist on that idea, it is never too late to reconsider what a gift should be. 

Because I am quite sure all of us have at least one shirt ready to be sent to retirement, this blog will describe turning that shirt into a thoughtful gift. It will cover the process of turning a shirt into yarn, naturally dyeing it, and, finally, finding the right purpose for that yarn. If you already have yarn, feel free to skip the first two, in case you want another idea, skip to the no-yarn part. 

YARN section

Shirt to yarn

First of all, take your shirt and draw lines of similar width on it, leaving two-finger spaces empty at the end of each line. After that, take a pair of good scissors and cut as in the pictures below. Cut the still connected parts of fabric diagonally and pull the fabric through fingers, as shown. If everything is done accurately, the result should be a thick second-hand ball of yarn. 

Natural dyeing

There are numerous ways to naturally dye, and I choose the most convenient for my case. I mixed up the onion skins I had with kurkuma and tea and hoped for the best. I put the mixture to sunbathe in a jar for a week. Even though there are better seasons and places to experiment with solar dyeing, my fabrics were satisfied with what they got.

While I was investigating natural dyeing I found out about some really interesting sources of paint (e.g. avocado) and natural mordants (old rusty nails). Lab-lovers, that’s something to fill up your summer breaks. 😉

Products

Now, our improvised yarn may not be amongst the top ten, but it can be a solid base to work with. Below are the pictures of my results. I must say, I wasn’t THE HAPPIEST with them, but that’s how things always look in the beginning phases. It’s best to have a targeted receiver and that your work mostly blossoms from love! Hahaha Or no, and that you together laugh at the joke you decided to call a gift this year. This is an obvious win-win situation.

NO-YARN section

For all my NO-YARN colleagues interested in bringing some sustainable dressing with that Christmas, I asked around for you. It was surprising how different and unexpected responses I got sometimes. One of my favorites is embroidery on old goods. It doesn’t have to be complicated but can still look darn cute.  

Further on, I wasn’t surprised by how many people said they would like to receive a frame, a picture, or an album. It looks like you can’t go wrong with that one, especially if you’re close ones like adventures or photography. (Cheap frames can always be found at second-hand shops and your hands could give them the needed touch for them to be hung on the wall. Also, doing a frame from scratch would definitely earn you some extra friendship points.) 

Poetic souls out there are the perfect target for this project. A jar that stored tomato juice could serve as a candle holder, storage for epic quotes/reasons why you find the person awesome, or basically whatever comes to your mind. One friend amazed me by mentioning an inside decorated box she would like to receive with one hole for an eye and one for the source of light. A plain shoebox with hidden treasures, and who knows, maybe a short dedicated poem in it. 

Another option, that I like to do from time to time is to give away my things. Do you know the situations: ˝Uggh, I love this scarf of yours˝ or ˝I might steal these earings from you˝? Most of the time we have too many things, and sometimes we are offered an opportunity to see, the things we neglect for weeks or months, we can cherish the most by giving them away.  

Last, but not least: you can always try to recreate a gift that you saw in a store at home by yourself. Good for the environment, most likely, and perfetto for your student bank account! 

As we open the Christmas season with these DIYs, I hope these tips are helpful to you! Love you, and wish you a lot of strength and openness in the process evaluation the upcoming week.