Hula Hoop Rug!

When I ran across this tutorial on Pinterest (I know, I'm an addict), I just KNEW I HAD to make it!! I have always wanted to try my hand at weaving, and I needed a rug to tie the colors of my room together. Besides, I already had all the materials, so if it didn't look so great after I was done, its no big loss.  So I brought up my hula hoop from the basement, found some old shirts to cut up (I used this tutorial to make my yarn), and set to work. I followed the tutorial pretty much exactly, using grey for the warp and grey, blue and orange as the weft. I used orange bulky yarn because I didn't have an orange shirt to use. Be sure not to pull the weft too tight, or you will make a bowl (like I did, but hey, it worked out!). I used a simple over-under style, but in another project I'd love to experiment with chevron or other patterns!

To make T-Shirt Yarn:

This is the shirt I started out with.

First, cut the hem off the bottom.

Next, cut the shirt into strips from side to side, but don't go all the way across, as shown.

Put your arm through the shirt, with the intact part laying against your arm, then cut diagonally to the first cut on the top left. I know, it is sort of confusing. Just watch the video if you have questions.

Continue cutting diagonally and you will have one long strip that looks like this.

Stretch the strips. It will fold in on itself to make yarn!

Wind the yarn into a ball

To Make the Weft:

Cut 11 strips from a shirt and stretch them around the hoop, equal distance apart.

Start by tying one piece of yarn to one spoke of the weft, then continue around in an over-under pattern. When one piece runs out, simply tie on another and keep going. You could be creative and incorporate ribbon, yarn, or fabric. 

You can see here how I tied the ends of the peices together in one section. I simply pushed them through to the back to hide them. Once got done, I cut the weft, one spoke at a time and tied them together. Unfortunately, my rug curled a little bit (It'll be our little secret), and it ended up looking like this:

But hey, it was OK! I simply flipped it over and let the edges curl, creating a nice edge. A happy accident!

I put it under my desk area and it is SO soft and squishy. It feels really nice against my toes, and it totally goes with all my colors!