I have an undying love for scarves…not only are they PERFECT for the San Francisco climate (foggy in the summer, winter, and every season in between!) but they can really jazz up a plain outfit with minimal/no effort.

My scarf obsession started when I lived in Italy…there were gorgeous scarves for sale at every market and since I only brought one coat with me, I used them both to keep warm and to change up the colors in my look.

I had seen some tutorials on how to make t-shirt scarves and the last time I cleaned out my closet, I decided to try and make one myself with an old t-shirt. I can’t remember what blog I saw it on, but suffice to say there are a bajillion tutorials on how to do this.

It’s really easy:
1. Lay your shirt out and cut off the hem.
2. Cut ~1 inch horizontal strips.
3. Repeat this until you get to the armpit of the tee.
4. Take each loop and pull on it till it stops being flat and has a “rolled” look.
5. Put all of the loops together. Take a strip from the extra part of the shirt and tie it around the loops to keep them together.

You can add more knotted areas, cut all the loops to make strips and then braid them…it’s really all up to you.

Lay out your tee

Cut 1 inch strips until you get to the armpit. Take each loop and PULL.

Gather loops and use some leftover fabric as "thread" to tie a knot around the loops and hold em together.

Ta da! Necklace or light scarf complete.

Something I would recommend is to not use a tee that has seams down the sides. Most ladies’ shirts have seams. Most of those “unisex but they only look good on men” shirts do not. Go now and steal a shirt in an attractive color from a dude in your life. Your dad/brother/son/cousin/boyfriend doesn’t need that shirt that says “1997 firefighters’ pancake breakfast fundraiser volunteer” on it. He already has a dozen other worn-out old tees in his closet. Maybe you can snag all of them, in the name of DIY crafting of course, and then he’ll have to wear something that is not all worn-out! You can clean up his style AND enhance yours all at once! (Can you tell there’s more than one guy in my life who wears the same old tees that I just want to burn?)

I suppose you could go to the thirft store and find one for $1 if you have a particular color you really want.

The tee that I used was in my donation pile and I had zero dollars invested in it, so I figured I’d try it out. Plus it was the only tee that I was willing to cut up that was a vibrant color. I have a whole lot of white, black, grey and navy in my life!

Someone might have to give me a lesson in scissors though…I used my kitchen shears because I don’t really have scissors. I can never cut in a straight line with them so for 99% of the times I need scissors, I will just use a knife and a straight-edge. (I could have done that in this instance but I wasn’t in the mood to drag my cutting mat out.) I had a hard time avoiding jagged edges on this project but I’m gonna chalk it up to a combination of terrible cutting skills and the kitchen scissors. If you have passed first grade scissor-skills 101, then you will probably be able to make a scarf with a lot less jagged edges, which will make your overall results more polished!

I can’t wait to make another scarf…I have a few giftees in mind that would really dig this.