Since Earth Day is coming up, this week we’ll be featuring some Reduce/Reuse/Recycle tips on the Knitting Community.

Here’s a video tutorial on how to recycle old, worn-out t-shirts into soft cotton ribbon yarn. All you need is a t-shirt that’s been through the laundry recently and a sharp pair of scissors. I’ve been thinking about making a bulky mat for the laundry area in our garage. I’ve been looking at patterns like Absorba (Ravelry link) from Mason Dixon Knitting. The sample swatch in the video was knitting up at about 3 stitches to the inch in garter stitch, which would work perfectly for the pattern and also let me put all of Dan’s ancient grubby white t-shirts to good use!

I also think this could be a good project for teaching a beginning knitter, since the t-shirt yarn is bulky and you remove the whole “Oh, but I’m not good at knitting yet and I don’t want to ruin this fancy yarn!” factor from the learning experience.

If you have a great crafty “upcycling” tip, share it in the comments! <