Craft Tutorial: T-shirt Infinity Scarf

Infinity scarfs are cute, versatile, and easily adapted to wear the ways you like. Even as a necklace! Here's how to throw one together, I made one for myself from one of Hubby's old torn up shirts, as well as one for The Princess from one of big brother's shirts WHILE I made dinner.

First grab your shirt. I totally didn't think about picture taking until I was a bit through the process, but you know what it looks like to grab a shirt. =-D You will want a soft t-shirt WITHOUT seams on the sides. It doesn't have to be a thick one either, thin under-shirts work just as well, as long as they have seam-less sides.

You are going to want to cut off the hem of the shirt, then chop it off about where the sleeves meet the trunk. The one I used from Hubby has a big hole that went a little below that, but cutting it that inch or so shorter didn't seem to matter.

Then, you are going to want to cut slits, going around the shirt horizontally, across your belly if you were wearing it. BUT leave a 1/2-3/4 inch space of material. Like this:

Now, you want to hold that nice, uncut, sturdy bit in your hand and grab the looped strands with the other hand. Slowly, but firmly stretch the strands until they curl up into themselves. They will start to look quite lovely.

Now, we're going to want to do something about that sturdy bit holding it together. Get a needle and a fair amount of thread. If you have cheap needles and/or already tender fingertips, grab some pliers too- it helps with the layers! I was lazy, and used the dark thread that was already out, but it was ok because it wasn't seen by the end.

You're going to want to weave your needle in and out and do a rough running-stitch through the length of the uncut portion. Neatness doesn't matter, you're just wanting to tack this all together, and gather it up.

Pull and gather it all up. Turn your needle about and go through again, from the opposite side, then again from the first side for good measure.

I also ran the thread around my bunch before I tied it off.

These are all the same shirt...just sucky lighting

Next, take a scrap of your shirt, and cut off a 1 inch x 1 1/2-2 inch rectangle. Neatness doesn't matter. Length doesn't matter much, because you won't need it all, but that extra bit makes it easier to hold while you get it attached. You'll cut the extra off. Stretch this rectangle a bit to get it to start to curl, it will help it look tidier. Stitch it to your bunched up part to cover it, much like a bow.

Ignore the flower you see peeking out until the next step ;-)

This one is left plain

You can leave it like this, use it as a spot to add a broach, or other bit of decoration, or you can make and sew on a super-cute flower like this: 

Take some of your t-shirt, and draw/cut out some simple flower shapes. I folder my material over so I had two of each size, small, medium, and large. I also cut out one tiny set of petals.

Next, you need to stack them all up, largest on the bottom. You can also give these a tiny bit of stretch to make them curl a bit.

Tack them together with a tiny X, but before tying off your thread, add a lovely little bead. Mine is nothing fancy, it is from a pack I found in the dollar bin at Dollar General. I also found it easier to STILL not tie-off and just sew the flower to the scarf now.