Warm, Soft and Handmade

As you've all heard, ad nauseam, we're on a fierce budget trying to take down our mountain of debt before we get clobbered by spinal surgery bills. It's going well, in fact this month we've budgeted 40.3 % of our income to debt reduction - which is major.

You can't throw that sort of money at a problem without squeezing other areas of your life pretty dry. I needed a scarf, but our clothing budget is routinely chewed and swallowed whole by boy shoes and boy jeans. Those children grow each and every month - it's nutty. At first I went to Micheal's and picked up some yarn on sale with plans to (knifty) knit it into a scarf. $7.48 isn't much of an expense, right. Good one. Well, no.

I looked through our scrap bag and saw a lot of wonderful, soft t shirts and promptly returned the wool. Instead I made a totally awesome, very "me" Pearl Jam themed scarf. Both sides are equally finished so it can be a gray and black striped scarf if Pearl Jam isn't appropriate for the setting. I even put a lot more stripes on the plain side for interest.



Pretty neat, huh? And Chris's holey Pearl Jam shirt and a Google swag give away have new life.

Tips from the project:

* I cut my pieces about 8 inches wide. It is a nice width but if you like your scarves skinnier or wider go for it.

* The length is roughly 68 inches.

* By mistake I cut a piece 7 inches wide - OOPS - and then didn't have enough material to finish the scarf. Since old t shirts are all faded differently I couldn't find a match. Instead I used the sleeves, cutting each into a ring that worked beautifully as stripes. I had no idea that sleeves don't have pesky seams to work around.

* Once I had sewed it all together and turned it right side out, I topstitched around it again about 5mm in from the edges. It gives the scarf a very finished look.

* I used white thread on top and black in the bobbin. The adds to the reversible feel as even the stitching is different on each side.

Hope you like my scarf and maybe you'll be inspired to make one of your own. It's a great use for classic but battered shirts.