Recycled Dress Shirt Rug

Recycled Dress Shirt Rug
Originally uploaded by Sheepish.

I haven't sewn anything together, as you can see by the huge gaps, but here is a picture to give you an idea of what my rug is beginning to look like. If you take a close look, you'll see that the most inner part of the coil is orange. I happened to have a cotton tank that shrank up too small in the wash (and that my mother-in-law's cleaning lady discolored slightly), so I've thrown it in for some more color. The next color is that tomatoe red that I dye some white shirts. And, of course, the obvious one is the blue on the outside. That fabric was a softer polyester/cotton blend stuff that was soooo much easier cut and knit than the 100% cotton.

A thought I had last night is that this could easily be done with old sheets, or with cheapy sale sheets or those from a second-hand store. Plain white ones would give you the chance to really play with the colors by dyeing them. That could be fun, but I've got plenty to do for now with these shirts. And, just to give you an idea of how far a shirt will go as yarn, the blue and the red sections are not even half of the body of two different shirts. I'm finding this to be fun, and I think the finished rug is going to look great in our new house. Can't wait!