Upcycled T-shirt Basket

Hi everybody, welcome to our live event. My name is Brenda KB Anderson, and I'm a crochet designer and also uh an instructor, and um a couple times a month I have these projects that I make up and like to share with you guys. I'm so glad that you guys are here. Um, of course this is a live event, so hello if you want to say hi to me just drop that in the chat. Um, also if you have any questions about what I'm doing or if you have advice for other people that's related or even unrelated, you can drop that in the chat too.

I like to hear from you guys during these live events. Um, so today is kind of like a part two. So in case you missed it a couple of weeks ago I did a live event on how to make t-shirt yarn basically out of um old t-shirts, repurposing your t-shirts into yarn. So, um, for example, right here the. This is some t-shirt yarn that I made um last time and so I kind of got everyone all prepped and ready and explained how to do this first because this is what we're going to be using today to create these baskets so let me pull this in here so um this is our project it's very sturdy.

Um, and I will be talking about like how to change the scale of your basket if say you're trying to make a basket to fit some specific spot in your house exactly. um, we'll be talking about that as we're working through here in case you need any tips on that, but basically, um, I designed this to fit inside of those like cubbies, those IKEA cube cubbies, so that's what size this basket is, but you can make it to whatever size you like. So in our last live event I did mention, you know, if you wanted to create a basket the same size um and work along with this, that you would need to cut your yarn strips somewhere in between like 1.5 and 2 inches wide. I know this doesn't look that way. Let me just pull this out here so you can see.

Um, when you pull on it, it kind of curls up, but when you cut the strips. They're quite a bit wider you can see here like that um and the reason I'm making them this wide is because I wanted to make a very sturdy basket. I didn't want this basket to be flopping all over the place um you know I wanted it to be able to hold lots of stuff like if you filled it up, I didn't want it to be all wobbly like it was gonna kind of slouch and tip over. I wanted it to be very, very sturdy, um, so we cut our strips very wide, uh, if you. Cut strips and they're not as wide you can make a smaller basket and you know if if the scale is a little smaller it'll still be sturdy enough so um you know if you wanna make something this large you need to cut your strips really wide.

If you wanna make something even larger like a larger like basket for your floor to hold a blanket or something you'd need even bigger wider strips um that's gonna take a lot of t-shirts, but it would be really cool um and you'll of course you'll have to go up on your hook size. Uh, so let's, let's talk a little more about the material. So, um, as, as we've discussed, you'll be you'll be making your yarn out of t-shirts or maybe you already did if you saw, um, the live event last time and you're all ready to go. Um, if you don't wanna do that, you could probably substitute with a, you know, a few yarns held together. I know that they do have jumbo yarns out there now that might be as thick as this, um, so you could test it out and see if it makes a sturdy fabric, but anything that will give you a firm gauge, um, and it's a fairly, you know, thick yarn, like a number 7 or something like that, um, would be, would work just fine.

Um, and then you're going to use a crochet hook to go along with that. So I'm gonna be using this 12 millimeter hook, um, but if you know that'll just kind of vary depending on how you stitch, like what your gauge is like, if you're seeing lots of holes between your stitches or you're not and you're not seeing a stiff fabric, your fabric should kind of behave like this. I don't know if you can kind of see just by looking at this, how stiff this piece is. Um, it should be nice and stiff like that when you stitch it up. So you can change your hook size in order to kind of control that.

So go down hook sizes if it's real flappy or if it's just like really hard to get your hook in there, you can go up a hook size or two. I um, I really like using a metal hook for this just because uh this is a fairly, you know, it's gonna make a very dense fabric, so you'd need to have a little bit of oomph with your hand, um, when you're crocheting and I just was a little concerned that like, um. Those plastic hooks that are like hollow, they're nice and smooth and they work great, but I was worried that that would be a little too hard on those. Um, I did actually use a bamboo hook for that basket and it worked just fine um but then I was like, well, I don't know if I want to suggest that but if somebody gets a different kind of bamboo hook and it's not as strong. So I would suggest a metal hook if you have one.

If you don't have one just try with whatever you have and just kind of like test it out a little bit, see if you think it's stirty enough, um, and kind of on that note. You know, if you are a person who has, you know, has a hard time getting hand fatigue or, um, you know, if crochet is painful for you sometimes, uh, this might be a project that, you know, approach with caution, maybe do a little at a time and see how it goes, you know. We are gonna be stitching at a firm gauge. It's thick yarn and um and you do need to have a little bit of strength in your hands. I mean it's not anything crazy, but um you know if you're used to just like where's the weight yarn and a and a larger hook um not larger than this but like large compared to your yarn, um.

You know, kind of a looser gauge type of thing. This is not gonna be like that. So I just want to give you that little bit of heads up. OK, um, and also I wanted to let you know there is a download to go along with this class. It's got the full instructions not only for the basket, but we also tacked on the instructions to make the yarn that um you can also access from the other live event.

There's a link in here to that live event in case you missed it, um. So you can see how the yarn is made and there's also like diagrams and things on how to cut up your t-shirt and um but for this for today's event, it's got all the instructions on how to make the basket as well as a picture tutorial on how to join new balls of yarn because that's something I'm gonna be teaching you during this live event. All right, oh, we've got some hellos. Hi Hannah B, thanks for popping in here. And we've got Fatima says hi.

I'm sorry if I said your name wrong. I apologize but hello thank you for saying hi to me. Um, and then, oh, we have a hello from Pakistan. Welcome. I'm so glad that you guys are here.

This is so cool. Like I love hearing where people are crocheting from or watching from. It's just amazing to me that we can all just get together and talk about the craft that we love so much from all over the world. That's just every time I, I see where you guys are, um, you know, tuning in from, I'm always just like really honored that you took the time out of your busy day to watch, so I'm glad you guys are here, OK. All right, let's get started.

So, um, oh, and I want to mention this basket took about 9 t-shirts. They were all large. A couple of them might have been, I think they were all large. Maybe one was an extra large and one was a medium, so I kind of averaged it, but that's how many t-shirts I needed for this basket, but that's gonna kind of vary depending on how thick your t-shirts are. I mentioned this in the last live event, if you're cutting up t-shirts that are thin, you might want to cut your strips wider than I suggest just because when it scrunches down, it'll be feel about the same weight and thickness as like, you know, medium or heavyweight t-shirt would.

So you can kind of adjust things to make your, your um your yarn that you're creating kind of be mostly consistent throughout. It's OK if it's not perfectly the same really it is because in in this basket you could even see there are some that are thinner than others like this sort of greenish yellowy color that that um crocheted up to be much thinner than say this sort of salmon color but you know. It's fine. It'll all work out and the whole purpose of this is to make something really beautiful out of things that would, you know, could end up in a landfill, you know, we throw away so many t-shirts. I mean if you just go to a secondhand store you'll just see like a giant rack of t-shirts and a lot of those won't sell.

People, you know, get t-shirts for all kinds of events. They wear it once or twice and then they just donate it because they don't need it anymore because people have lots of t-shirts that's. You know, and so it's kind of a problem, um, but this is just such a great way to make use of, you know, something that could be headed for a landfill and you can create something really useful and beautiful and you can tailor it exactly to the size you want which is awesome. All right, so um we talked about the yarn that we made we talked about the hook um also I mentioned there is a download um in the description there's a link for the download that includes all the instructions for the basket and also for the making the yarn. All right, those are really the only supplies you need.

Um, I am also using a stitch marker to kind of help me keep track of the beginning of the rounds, but that isn't actually super important. Um, so if you don't have that, that's fine. You could use a safety pin if you want or bobby pin or something like that. That works too. Um, and if you have a large metal, large-eyed blunt, um, metal.

Needle yarn needle, um, that's useful too, but I will show you a way to tuck in your ends, um, using your crochet hook later if that's something you just don't have because we're we made such, you know, crazy thick yarn here. So there's ways around things. All right, so, um, a lot of this live event, you know, this is just very, very basic stitches. These are single crochet stitches. We're not gonna be learning any funky new stitches here, um, but.

Most of this tutorial is going to be about just kind of how to manage this yarn, how to work with it, how to add more yarn to it, um, and just sort of like tips and tricks, and also how to adjust your basket. All right, oh, we've got a couple more hellos. Um, Diana is saying hi. Oh, and we've got someone, a Marian from Jamaica. Hello, thanks for dropping in and saying hi you guys.

OK, so to start out, um, we're gonna be working back and forth and turned rows in single crochet, and we are creating the bottom of the basket. So bottom of the basket is a square. Let me show you guys what this looks like here. If I flip it upside down. So here is the bottom of the basket.

This is what we're creating first and this is makes it easy to adjust because you can see exactly how big your basket is going to be. So once you start working this up, you can just kind of check and see if you like the size it's turning out, see if you like how, um, like the density of the fabric, and then you can adjust from there. We'll talk about that a little bit more um after we get going here. All right, so I am going to make my slipknot, so. I'm going to just, this is how I like to teach making slipknots, so I just make a little loop, flip that loop over onto the strand that's connected to the ball of yarn, and then I'm just going to put my hook underneath there and pull this a little tighter.

Close to my hook here, and now I'm going to chain 15. So you can see. Um, this end of the yarn, because of the way I cut it, this was a switchback method. If you haven't watched how I created this yarn, that's OK. You can always watch that later if you want a little clarification, but sometimes your yarn is gonna be kind of roughly or have little edges sticking out or kind of be weird, and so that's part of why I wanted to do this live tutorial so you could just kind of see how to manage that and how to deal with that.

So this piece of yarn was cut out. You know, like in this sort of you U shape here, um, but once we crochet through here, it's all gonna just kind of um clump up and you, you, it'll just kind of be wrinkly and you won't notice all that stuff. But if it's kind of um causing issues, one thing you can do is you can just sort of twist this, twist your yarn a little bit. And then when you work over it, it's not gonna be sticking out in in your way. OK, so we're chaining 15, 123.

You can see there's a little knot there from where I fastened pieces together. We just keep going. 89. 1011. 12.

13. 0, looks like I have a little bit of a tag here. I'm gonna snip that off. 14 and 15. Now let me just recount that just in case.

123456789 1011, 1213, 1415. OK, so at this point you can already tell about how wide it's going to be. It may change just a little when you work into it, but that'll give you a kind of a good idea, um, one of the dimensions of your basket. So now we are going to work into the second chain from the hook, but we're going to work into the bottom of the chain. So here's the top of the chain.

There's all these little V's kind of all stacked up in this direction, and if you roll those over so the V's are touching the table, you'll see these little horizontal bumps on the back, and those are the places where we're going to be stitching under. So we're going to skip the first horizontal dash and work under the second one. So this first um row is always the hardest, you know, in crochet, but also, you know, when you're working with this kind of awkward yarn, it can be a little bit tricky to get your hook through. um, so if you need to pull that out and make your first chain a little bit looser, you know, this would be a good time to do that. You don't want to have to struggle too much.

OK, so we're going to grab that yarn, pull up the loop, yarn over, and pull through too. That's going to be our very first single crochet of the row. And there's our next bump. Insert yarn over, pull up a loop, yarn over, and pull through 2. So now we've got 2 stitches.

We're gonna keep going all the way across. And you can see, you know, this isn't just gonna fly by like if you were working with worsted weight, yarn, and you know this is an unusual project, but just keep it in your mind that you are making a, you know, a basket and it is actually working up quickly. You're just not gonna be able to make your stitches as quickly as you normally do. You do kind of have to like just sort of, you might have to fuss a little to get your hook through and when you pull it up. Yarn over and pull through.

There's gonna be curling and weird things that are happening because it's very dense. Just keep kind of, you know, straightening it out and moving on to the next one. I guess what I'm trying to say is give yourself a little bit of leeway here when you're working on this and just know. You know, at least the first couple of rows might be a little awkward, and that's OK. There really aren't that many stitches in this entire basket, so think about it that way.

So you can see um the method that I had used to create this yarn here. I've got seams that pop up every once in a while, but for something like this, it just doesn't bother me. Um, if this, if you missed the previous live event where I made the yarn, there are ways to cut out your yarn where you don't have seams, even if there are seams in the sides of your t-shirt. Um, so if you're interested in that, you can go back and watch that, that live event. But it doesn't, it really doesn't bother me, especially for these kind of home decor, like throw pillows or cushions, baskets, that sort of thing.

All right, we've gotten to the very end of our row. Worked one stitch into each stitch across, and you just sort of have, like, I usually just sort of pull on it a little to get those stitches to kind of straighten out. And we're going to chain one, and we're going to turn our work just like we're turning a page in a book. And then we're gonna work across. Um, again, with single crochet.

So that turning chain counts only as a turning chain. It doesn't count as a stitch. So we just chain that and then we never work into that turning chain. So this is the first place we'll work right there. So, we're gonna just gonna be creating single crochet stitches all the way across.

And you can see, after that first row of working into that chain, it really is so much easier to get your hook into the tops of these stitches than it was in that chain. So you know, don't give up on the first row, you guys. I and I don't wanna make it seem like this is very scary or really horrible to do this, this project is so fun to me, um, not only because you can just, I mean, you're transforming t-shirts into this really cool basket, which is just a cool idea in the first place, um, but I love making these big giant stitches and, and being able to combine different colors together and. It's just a fun process. OK, so you're just gonna be working back and forth and turned rows like this, um, and I'll just kind of skip ahead a little bit so I can, uh, show you how to join a new ball of yarn.

So here I've worked almost 6 rows. I'm going to work until this runs out, so it's, you know, just a few more stitches here. And you know, you could join a ball of yarn just like how you normally do if you run out of yarn, you can add another strand and you can weave in those ends later. So here's another little flap from the way that I cut out my, my yarn, and I'm just gonna kind of twist that. To just make it less in the way.

And then once you stitch it up, it won't stick out. There's another little flap. Here we go, just kind of roll it up. OK, so when you get pretty close to your end, you still want to leave at least 6 inches or 8 or something like that on the end. We are going to widen out.

We're going to just kind of unroll that our strand of yarn or a strip here, and I'm going to fold this in half. Now, I'm gonna grab a new ball of yarn. Let's take this pretty green color here. Here's my new ball of yarn. We're going to just create a little hole in the new ball.

So I'm gonna cut it about maybe about 3/4 of an inch. Um, away from the edge there, just a little ways, and I'm gonna cut a little snip. So I have about, maybe it's about a half of an inch or a little bit smaller, maybe like, you know, like 1 centimeter wide, something like that. Um, and then with this piece, this has been folded in half. Like this.

And then I'm going to cut a slit right through here that is big enough that I can send this ball of yarn through. So I think I can make it a little smaller actually. You want it just big enough to put that ball of yarn through. So I'm going to just cut, here's the folded edge. I'm going to cut a slit right here.

Like that, and it's stopping about, you know, half an inch or 3/4 of an inch away from that edge. So now I'm going to take, OK, so this is what it looks like. I'll just spread it out so you can see there's just a hole in my, my piece of yarn that is part of my project. So I'm going to send the old yarn through this little slit in the new yarn. Like that, and pull it through far enough that I can open up this hole in the yarn, and I'm gonna place the ball of yarn right through the hole like that.

And then when I pull on these two, they're going to interlock. And that's gonna be my little tiny knot. This is a much smaller knot than if you were to, you know, just tie your pieces together, um, so it kind of disappears into your fabric a little bit better. Yeah, you might be able to see it sometimes when you crochet it up, but it really is pretty, pretty small compared to if you were to tie a knot. Also, um, it saves you lots of, you know, if you were to just weave in your ends.

It's, first of all, it is a little bit tricky to weave in your ends into something that's this dense and has all these little folds in it. So I avoid that as much as possible. So that's why I'm always just kind of adding balls of yarn in this in this manner because it just makes it really easy and seamless. And so there we are, crocheting with the new piece, and I'll show you what the back looks like. There's my little knot.

And if that bothers you, you know, sometimes you can just sort of Push your knot, so it's hidden a little bit. We'll see. Maybe we can pull it this way and crochet over it. Uh, it doesn't look like it, not this time, but it looks fine and to me having these little kind of little anomalies or little things that stick out, there's a little seam here there's another little knot over here this stuff just doesn't bother me because the whole point of this um project is to make something out of something else and then these little imperfections that just to me it's just sort of like, hey guys this is handmade, this is, you know, maybe it's not perfect, but it's beautiful anyway. So then you can just continue crocheting in the new color.

And when you get to those seams, if they stick out, sometimes you can kind of push them into. Uh, uh, you know, a more hidden place as you get to them. You can kind of adjust it here once we get to the next seam, I'll kind of show you what I mean. So I'm gonna chain one and turn. And, you know, I find with this, I just sort of have to stretch it out to make my stitches lay flat, otherwise they're all curly.

So I just do that after every row. You don't have to, you can always do it later, but. It just helps me to kind of see how it's all um crocheting up. OK, so there's a little seam right there. Sometimes you can sort of direct where that goes.

You can even sometimes tuck your seam to the inside. That's the opposite of the way that the yarn wants to. Roll up so you kind of have to do that on purpose yourself um when you make when you cut up these t-shirts, most of the t-shirts are made with a jersey knit and so when you pull on it, the t-shirt wants to curl a certain way and it and it will always curl with that seam to the outside but you can just like I showed you there, you can just sort of force the seam to be on the inside if you want. I don't usually bother, but I know that, um, you know, there will be people who, who are more bothered than this uh by this than me. So here's another one coming up.

You can on purpose just sort of fold that to the inside of your tube maybe when you get a little closer, I'll probably have to do that again um. Let's see. Just gonna fold that in. And then your seam, I mean, yes, you can see where the two pieces are stitched together, but you don't have that surged edge sticking like, you know, just kind of protruding from your yarn. In that way.

Oh, it popped out a little bit there when it came through. You know, it's a little fiddly if you want to hide that. You can do it though. You know, you just have to be keeping your eye on it while you are. Working past it.

There we go. So that's not too bad. It's pretty much hidden inside there. Um, so I just wanted to show you there are some, you know, some ways to deal with. With the little imperfections or, you know, another way to deal with it is to just not care.

That's what I do. I just let it go. I just let it kind of come through and it doesn't bother me. All right, so I'm gonna do a little bit more and then I will show you how to start working the sides of your basket, but um, so while I'm doing this, I want to talk a little bit about figuring out the size of your basket. So after you do a couple of rows, that is really a great checkpoint to see how wide your piece is gonna end up because you know things can change a little bit after you make that first foundation chain after you work into it a couple of times, it might get wider or narrower, um, just depending.

So I would wait until you've worked a couple of rows back and forth and then you can see how wide your piece is. If you feel like, oh, that's good, then you can just keep on working, but if you feel like, well, that's a little smaller than the bottom of the basket that I wanted it to be, right? Um. If that is the case, then you can pull that out. You haven't done that many stitches so far, so it's, you know, you might as well just pull it out and start over and add however many stitches you need to to make it to the width that you want.

So if you're trying to figure that out, um, you can use this basically as your gauge swatch, um, say you make up this rec or the square and you're like, oh, I really wish it was like 2 inches wider, then you can lay your ruler on here and be like, oh, OK, so 2 inches, that's about. Sorry, I've got a little piece of string there. Um, you know, if you lay your ruler on, you can count how many stitches are in those 2 inches. Let's see, yeah, I don't have my ruler with me, but if you laid it out here, you could say, OK, 123 are in those 2 inches. OK, so I'll do the same amount of stitches I did before, plus 3 more and that way you'll know exactly how wide to make it.

And just so you know, it does get a teensy bit wider. Um, just a little bit wider than the base of this, um, towards the top of the basket because on that first round it just kind of widens out just a little bit once you start working in the circle, um, just a little, uh, a, a very small amount wider I guess, like maybe like half an inch or something, but the the basket is not rigid, you know, it's not like. You know, if you make it to the, to the exact width that you want it to be, it'll still fit in your, in your cubby if you're making it for a cubby. All right, so we just chain one, turn our work, and continue, and you can think about if you want to. Just use up the whole color and move on to the next color.

That's pretty much what I did in these baskets, um, or if you want to kind of go back and forth between colors because now you know it's so easy to add another ball of yarn to it, you can do that. Um, on the first basket that I made, uh, when I was making the yarn, I used the bodies of the. Of the uh t-shirts to make balls of yarn and then I cut off all the sleeves and then I use the sleeves to make one big multi-colored ball of yarn so it changed back and forth between different colors um so that way I was able to use, you know, the bottom is colorful but also I was able to use all the colors that I picked out along the sides of the yarn because I was like, oh I don't really want one of these colors to be missing because it's just on the bottom of the of the basket so that's just something to think about too. All right, we're getting close to the end of this ball, and I'll show you one more time how to add another ball of yarn. Oops, so here's another piece that's sticking out.

Actually, I'm gonna cut this just a little further. Cause I, I think I didn't cut that quite deep enough there. And again, you can just sort of twist it up like that. To be able to. Keep the edges from kind of pulling out.

Looks like we have a few more stitches left, and then I'll switch to the next color. So you're gonna keep working back and forth in those turned rows. I worked for 14 rows and I had 14 stitches. It just kind of ended up being square, but, um, depending on your gauge, depending on your yarn, how you stitch, you may need to work more or fewer rows at, um, to make it into a square bottom unless of course you want to make a rectangle. There's no reason it has to be a square at all.

Um, but if you're making it into a square, you can just keep comparing this distance here to this distance here. And when they're the same, that's how you know, you can stop. Got a few more stitches here. Oh, we've got a couple more comments. Let me get back in here.

OK, so Autumn was asking if I made the yarn myself. Yes, I did. Um, I was talking about this towards the beginning. I did a live event on making the yarn from old t-shirts, um, that was a couple weeks ago, and there's a link in the, oh, now there should be a link, there's a link here. We've got links.

Great. OK, so you should be able to find that tutorial. Also, the instructions for doing that are in today's download as well. OK, so we're getting to the end. I can do another couple stitches and turn.

So that little bit, I don't like how that's sticking out, so I'm going to. I'm gonna check and see why that's sticking out so much. OK. I'm just gonna twist it just a little more here. Here we go.

And here's my last stitch. And actually, before I do my chain one, we're gonna add the next ball of yarn. So let's add. Maybe this yellow. OK, so the old yarn.

I'm gonna fold this in half so that I can cut a slit and just kind of hang on to it. You don't have to fold it. You can just poke your scissors through and then cut if you want to, if that helps. I just find it easier to kind of fold it, make sure that it's centered, and then cut that slit. Through the middle.

Leave it so that there's about 3/4 of an inch right there, and then I'm going to cut a slit on this side. Just making that a little more even. Just going to cut that little slit about 3/4 of an inch away from the end. You've got a good morning from Angelus. Good morning.

I'm glad you're here. Um, Thrifty crocheters saying good morning everyone. Is it hard to work with t-shirt yarn? Well, that's a good question. I, I personally don't think it is, but that's because I already have it in my mind that I'm gonna slow down a little bit.

If you are using like a mass-produced t-shirt yarn, you know, that you can purchase yourself, it's not difficult at all. where the difficulty comes in is like how much you want to be bothered by the little um imperfections in your yarn, little pieces that stick out or seams or things like that. Also, we are stitching this project up at a very, very dense gauge and um so I'm just showing you here. I'm gonna be just sending that ball of yarn through that slit again. Um, and really, most of the difficulty for this project comes in with just, you know, this is just a very sturdy gauge.

So, um, and there we have it connected. So now we can just keep going. Um, so I wouldn't say it's difficult, you know, what we're doing is very simple stitches so that you can kind of concentrate on how your project is working out, um, if you need to go back and fix anything because we, you know, we made this yarn and there's gonna be little imperfections in it and we can make little adjustments as we're crocheting to kind of reduce those imperfections, but also this is just one of those projects that I just feel like you have to not. Need it to be perfect because the overall appearance, it looks really beautiful when it's in a basket and it's fine if there's like little bit sticking out here or there. I mean on my baskets I can see even in some places is it on here?

Like right here I can see the writing from the tag I think it's the brand right here it says good. But things like that just don't bother me because this is, you know, it's the spirit of the project for me. And the overall look of the project that I like so much, so. It doesn't bother me. If it just feels like, yeah, these pieces have history, you know, they came from somewhere.

Somebody wore them and, you know, now they're being still being useful in it, but in a different way. Um, oh, and Hannah's saying she mentioned it could be rough on the hands, but to work a little at a time if you have issues with hand cramps. Yes, thank you, Hannah. Yeah, I mean that's just, you know, you're gonna have, you can see that I'm not just like do do do do do like how I'm normally crocheting. I can't crochet super fast with this yarn because it's, it is a little bit grippier like when I'm pulling it through, but a lot of that is because I'm crocheting it at such a dense gauge.

If you were crocheting it, you know, a thinner yarn, actually I do have thinner t-shirt yarn right here. Um, so this was cut. To be a thinner, a thinner yarn. So if I'm using my thick crochet hook, the same hook, I can show you it's a little bit easier to stitch with this. See, I can go quicker with this because there's just the ratio of the hook to the yarn is different, you know, it's gonna have a little bit of drape here.

Um, I'm not trying to, you know, with this size hook, with this size yarn, I'm, I'm not gonna get a very firm gauge, which is fine if I'm not making a basket. Like if you wanted to make a bag or a pillow covering or something like that, if you're interested in using this yarn, but you're looking at this and thinking, oh, Brenda, I don't think I could do that to my hands, um. Then yeah, you could certainly use your t-shirt yarn with a you know a sizable increase in your hook and then you won't have such a sturdy gauge it'll just be easier for your, you know, for you to get through, uh, making those stitches but this, you know, this is my hands don't hurt but you know I also don't, I do not normally struggle with having hands, you know, hand pain from crochet either, so. All right, so I think I have just a couple more rows, and then I'm gonna show you how to work around the basket and to create the sides. And another thing, um, that I just, I'm kind of noticing I'm doing, I'm pulling through and then pulling through.

Instead of trying to pull it through both loops in one motion how I normally do when I crochet. It just seems to like pulling through and then pulling through. Don't do another yarn over in there. I almost did that, but you're, you know, just concentrating on getting your hook through one loop at a time. Loop loop.

And that might make it a little easier too. And I'm also using my thumb and my finger to be holding on to holding on at the base wherever I'm pulling through. You can see my hand kind of jumps when I pull through each of those loops that helps me, but you, you know, you'll just find your own what works for you I guess. OK, so we've got 2468, 1012, 13. OK, I'm gonna do one more row.

And then we're gonna start working back and forth, uh, uh, start, start working in the round, sorry. And you can, you know, pull up just a little more on one loop if that helps. Get your hook through, like to make your stitches a little taller, that's OK if you need to. Something like that could help you when you're stitching as well. All right.

We're almost at the corner. That's where we're going to switch to working in the round. This would also make a really awesome rug too. I mean you'd have to put some sort of non-slip pad or something under it because I think this would be quite slippery. It's just like, you know, it'd be like if you stepped on a t-shirt on your floor it'd be pretty slippery um if you have a wood floor, that is, if it's a rug on a rug, no problem, but.

Um But yeah, it would be very sturdy and absorbent. All right, I got one more stitch to do here. There it is. the last stitch, and then we are going to start working in the rounds. So, here's our square.

I'm going to just rotate this, and then we're gonna start working across here. So, When you're doing that, you're gonna be creating, if this, if you wanted this to be a square and the base is square, so far you've got 1414 stitches across. I have 14 rows, but you'll have however many rows you need to in order to make it square. So if this is 14 stitches and it's square, you know that this can also be 14 stitches over here because they're the same length as each other. So in order to get those 14 stitches across there, I like to divide this in half.

You could divide it further if you wanted to, but I'll use a stitch marker to divide that in half or a bobby pin or even just eyeball it and say, oh, there's that last stitch right there. That's the first one and the lighter green on the edge. OK. So this half's going to get 7 stitches and this half's going to get 7 stitches. And when you're working into the sides of your rows, like in the edges of your turned rows, there's no specific spot you have to put your hook.

Um, you can just put it wherever it makes sense. So, usually when I do this, I put one right in the side of that very last stitch that I made. So that's going to count as my first stitch of the round, and I'm going to put a stitch marker in there so that when I come around, I can remember. Right there. And so that's 1.

I'm going to do 6 more ending at at that stitch marker. So, you just kind of put your hook wherever it makes sense. That's one. So 12. This one is a little, this row is a little bit tricky because, you know, you're, you don't have a specific spot you can put your hook through.

You just sort of have to shove it in there wherever it goes. 1234. And so I have to do 3 more. One Oops. Oh, I think if I twist that it'll be better.

So it's kind of getting caught on a little flap of t-shirt there. There we go. Sometimes if you twist your arm, it'll get rid of that. So, one. And then 2 more.

There's some more words. There we go. So now I should have 7. 123456, and 7. And I'm going to keep going, and I'm going to do 7 on the other side of this stitch marker here.

1 To Or 6 And 7. Here we go. So, we've gone across this side. Now, we're gonna go across the foundation chain, and I stitch only in the back loop of the chain. So, here's all those little V's.

You can see along the edge. They're all kind of going this way. I'm just gonna be working underneath the back loop. So that's right here. And the reason I'm doing that is because it helps it make a nice square bottom.

It helps it turn. Um, so I'm gonna just make one stitch into each stitch across working through just the back loop of that foundation chain. And this, you know, this is another little bit of a tricky spot. Once we get this first round in, it's gonna be a lot faster, a lot easier. But it's kind of amazing um how a whole t-shirt could only take up about a round and a half in these baskets.

I mean if you look at the color stripes, it's like a whole adult t-shirt, but it's because we're, you know, squeezing it into that, you know, very dense fabric. All right, so we're gonna have to add another piece. I'm gonna add Maybe I'll do this. Color here. Wow, that's kind of dark.

I'll do, let's see. Do this one. All right. So again, we're gonna fold that. And cut through.

Until it's a big enough loop that you can pass the ball of yarn through. And here's the new yarn. I'm just gonna cut that little slit. And then I'll pass this end through the slit. Until I can pull it through far enough that I can pass the ball of yarn through that long slit we made, and then we can pull.

He's away from each other. And that makes it interlock into a nice neat knot, nice neat knot. All right. So, we have a few more stitches left of this edge. And then we're gonna work around.

The, the other two sides. There's my last stitch. Or the last one on that side, I should say, and then we'll rotate again. And then we're going to do the same thing where we divide this edge in half and do 7 stitches on each side. OK.

So here's our beginning yarn tale from this whole project, right? Um, like I said before, it is a little tricky to weave in your ends. You can certainly do it, especially if you have like a nice blunt sturdy needle with a large eye. That's no problem, but not everybody has that. So I will just crochet over this as I work across to this stitch marker here so that way we don't have to weave that in at all.

So I'm going to create a Single crochet here. And I'm just working over that little yarn tail just to hide it and this yarn is pretty grippy. It's not very slippery, so I really don't think you have to worry too much about, you know, leaving a nice long yarn tail, weaving it back of, you know, no normally I tell people you should really weave your yarn tails in in a couple of directions, um. You know, back and forth in a couple of directions so that it's, there's less of a chance of it slipping out, but this, it's pretty sticky, this yarn, so I'm not worried about it coming out. Oops, I have to.

There we go. All right, we've got 1234. 6 And 7. OK, so this is, it already, you know, because we're not adding any extra stitches at the corners, it kind of wants to start curving already, so that's gonna be folding in that direction, OK? And then we'll do 7 more stitches here.

So one 2 3 4 5 6 And 7. Yeah, and then we'll rotate again. And again, just like before, we're gonna be working into the back loop of this row and we're going to make, you know, one stitch into each stitch across. So this was the last row that we worked. We're gonna be working 14 single crochets into that back loop all the way across here.

And after this, it's pretty, the rest of it, the finishing will be much easier. This is just a little tricky working our way around here. It just takes a little extra attention, really. And you gotta slow down. This is what this is definitely what they call slow crafting here.

Even though you're using like a super jumbo yarn, you just have to slow it down a little bit. At first when I was thinking about doing this live event I was like, oh my gosh, I'm gonna have to stitch so slow and everyone is gonna be like, oh this is taking too long to watch. But then I thought, you know what, I think I have to be showing this because I have to show how you can't just breeze through it so people don't have that expectation when they look at this basket like oh I'll be done with that in half an hour, you know, it takes a little longer than that, but it, you know, it's still, I think, a fairly quick project. It's just that. You know, your stitches look so big, so it gives you this idea that you just breeze right through, but you do have to take a little more time on each stitch.

OK, so I kind of shape that with my hand and allow it to bend. It'll kind of do that the more rounds you work on, um, but we've made it all the way around and then at this point we are just going to start working in the round. So making those single crochet stitches, one into each stitch around. And you'll see it's gonna start taking on that sort of cube shape as you work more rounds. Here we go.

So I don't, it's forming one of the corners right here. And you're just gonna continue. So one stitch into each stitch around and you're just gonna do that until it's the height that you want it to be. I worked 10 rounds, um, including the first round that I already did, um, in yellow. Well, mostly it was in yellow, I think, until the very end when I just switched to gray, but that first round that I did, um, that was round number 1 and then there were 9 more rounds in, um, the two baskets that you can see here on the table.

So that's what it's looking like. You can see it's, you know, starting to take that basket shape. You just sort of have to mold it a little with your hands when you're working on it at first, and then as you go along, it's just gonna get more and more and obviously into that sort of basket shape. All right, so you just continue until it's the height that you want it to be. Pull this out of the way here.

And so for this basket, I did, you know, a total of 10 rounds, um, and now we're ready to finish up the very last round here and then I'll show you the slip stitching that I did. So, Here I am on my very last round. This is where, you know, the beginning of my round was right here. And one thing I will say, it really helps to have a sturdy edge at the top that helps this basket keep its shape really well um so if your if your yarns are of like sort of varying thicknesses, it is a good idea to make sure that you have a nice thick one at the top because you know you don't want it to be floppy at the top the the sort of this one is extra thick and it really helps it to kind of stay nice and crisp. Um, here's my last stitch.

And you know, because we're working the round, stitches sort of travel a little bit they sort of go to the side like you can see here down here this is sort of veering off to the side, um, so if you want it to end right at the corner, you can just do an additional stitch or two to get you at that corner before you switch, um, to doing the very last round. So the last round is slip stitching. So, in order to do that, you're just going to insert your hook into the next stitch, grab that yarn, pull up your loop, and pull it through the loop on your hook, just like that. Pull it through, pull it through. Oh, this t-shirt is a little extra thick and it's also not a very smooth t-shirt.

It's got a lot of texture to it, so it's a little bit harder for me to stitch with, but. So you can see that slip stitch is gonna sit right on the sort of outer edge of your basket. And, you know, part of this is decorative. It just makes it look a little bit more finished. You could leave it off if you wanted to.

But it does also add that extra stability to the top edge of the basket, which I really liked. So that's actually what made me do it more than more than the sort of decorative look. It's to make this a really sturdy and thick, very dense, um, top edge because that, you know, that's gonna help your basket maintain its shape really well. All right. So I'm gonna, as I'm sub-stitching around here, um, let me know if you guys have any questions or thoughts um on this basket or other projects made with this yarn.

Let me just check and see if, oh, I'm a little behind here. Oh, we have a Buendia Decede Argentina. OK, is that good day from Argentina? I'm just guessing Rosa's crochet. hello.

I hope I am translating that right. Um, good morning everyone. First time here watching from Florida. Well, welcome Demps Designs. We're glad you found us.

So in case you guys didn't know, I do these live tutorials, um, where I design something and then I teach you guys how to make it. I do that, I would say at least twice a month, um. You know, for the creative crochet corner, but also for craftsy too. Um, they have lots of free live tutorials just like this one. In fact, if you guys have um noticed my sleeves here, I did a live tutorial, um, where I patched up a jean jacket.

This was, I think this was maybe. I can't remember how long ago it was within the last year, I believe, um, it was called Sustainable Stitches. We did a little miniseries on it, um, and my project was to take a jean jacket and then do some patchwork that's kind of decorative and add some embroidery to it in case you guys are interested in checking that out. And I also along the same lines of this basket that I'm making, I did another live event for Craftsy where I um cut up plastic bags, you know, like those shopping bags that just get thrown away. I cut them up and made yarn out of that.

It's called larn. That's what people call it, um, but I did a tutorial on how to do that and then how to create a basket, and the basket that I made is so sturdy, you guys. I made it like at least I think 2 years ago and it still looks brand new. And I've been using it a lot every summer I use it for um you know, going to the pool, going to the beach. I use it on trips, you know, I just, it's very sturdy and it looks so nice.

It's just kind of, I, I am just actually shocked at how well it's held up and especially considering that I don't take care of it very well like. It a lot of times ends up crumpled in the bottom of my closet if I'm not using it, and then I go find it, dig it out from underneath, you know, my kids' pairs of shoes and whatever random things are on top of it, and just shake it out and it looks just like I made it yesterday. It's kind of amazing. But I like it because um it can get wet and you can rinse it off. I mean, it's plastic.

It's made out of plastic bags, so it's kind of amazing. So that we did a live tutorial, um, for Earth Day where we made, um, Jen Lucas knitted a bag out of Pillarn and I crocheted a bag. So in case you guys are interested in more projects that are kind of like this one. All right, I'm almost all the way around. I just want to show you how to fasten it off and make it look nice, and how to weave in that end, um, if you don't have a yarn needle.

Well, a yarn needle, that'll work anyway. Few more stitches. Left But I hope that you guys can see, I know, I wish you could feel this, but I hope you can see that this is a very, very sturdy project. Um, you know, it's, it's not gonna collapse. It's not, it's nothing you have to add starch to or add structure to it already has lots of structure just because, you know, we crocheted at such a dense gauge and what we made it out of, I just created a really nice useful basket.

This would be really cute with like little handles on the sides or. OK, so let's see. I think I've got one more stitch, yeah, one more to do. That is my last stitch there. And now I'm going to cut my yarn, and I'm going to just pull this all the way through, pull my hook out.

Right there, and I'm going to, I'm gonna do an invisible join. So this was my first slip stitch. I am going to bring my yarn. Let's see, I'm gonna push my hook through here. And then just pull my yarn underneath that stitch from front to back.

Like that. And then, I'm going to insert my hook into the center of that very last slip stitch that I made, and then pull that yarn through there as well. Oops, I pulled it the wrong way through there. It's gotta go from. The center of that loop.

Out like this. There we go. So now it looks uninterrupted. You can't even tell where we stopped. Just looks exactly like any of the other stitches.

Um, and now we have this kind of on the inside. So, if you don't have a yarn needle that you can use, you can use your crochet hook just like how we have been, to just sort of pull your yarn through a couple of these stitches. So, I pulled it through there. We can also Let's see. Put my yarn through here, my needle through, sorry, my hook.

I can get it through here. Oh, that is a very tight stitch. I'll put it through this underneath this leg here. There we go. And just kind of pull it underneath there.

I'll do maybe 1 or 2 more and then it should stay. It's pretty sticky, this yarn, and it really doesn't want to slip. So it is a little harder to bury. It's harder to get your hook in, especially since, you know, the stitches are pretty tight, but once you do that and you pull it through, it's gonna stay. It's not gonna just sort of pull out.

I'm gonna do one more here. There we go. So I'm just putting my hook underneath a part of a stitch and grabbing that tail and pulling it through. Like that. And for many of you, if you work with jumbo yarns, you'll have a yarn needle, like, it doesn't have to be huge.

I think I could probably even get it on this one. Maybe. Possibly, let me just see. I think I could probably wiggle it on through here. If, if you do, um.

Yeah, maybe not. I think that would take too much effort, but just a touch bigger than this one, and that would work and you could weave in your yarn that way, but you have to make sure it's a fairly large needle so that it doesn't get stuck in all the folds. That's the issue with this yarn is it's, you know, like as you're crocheting it, you're kind of wrinkling up all that fabric and then when you're sending your yarn needle through it can get a little bit stuck. So, the method that I just showed you where you just kind of put your hook through to grab it and grab it again. That's been working great for me, so I would recommend that.

All right, so if you want to, you could put some towels in here into that sort of cube shape and give it a little steam to sort of help set the corners a little bit better in this basket, um, but you don't have to. You can just start using it. You don't, I feel like this is the kind of thing you don't really have to block. So, and so you can see it's pretty sturdy and yeah, it's just crocheted crochet t-shirts. All right, let me just make sure I answered everything.

Oh, we have a hello from Indonesia. Hello. Uh, when you wash the t-shirts prior to cutting, should we use softener or not? I don't think it really matters. I, I guess softener might make it a little easier to stitch with, so you could try using that, but I think that, you know, the texture of the t-shirts are probably more responsible for how well your yarn slips or doesn't like this last gray color that I was using as I described, it's, it's very coarse.

This t-shirt is very, not very slippery at all, so that was giving me a little bit of extra. Um, stubbornness, um, I don't think it matters too much either way. Um, what is the best kind of tea for tea yarn? t-shirt for tea yarn, um, t-shirt for t-shirt yarn. Um, so ideally, uh, the t-shirts that don't have any seams on the sides, those are the absolute best because you don't end up with those little surge seams into your, uh, you know, kind of sticking out of your yarn.

But you can really use any t-shirt. I found like I just wanted to go to the thrift store. I actually went to the outlet for Goodwill, so like in a secondhand store outlet, so the things that did not sell for, you know, however many weeks they give it a chance to sell at the at the thrift store. If it doesn't sell there, it goes to this outlet and you can pay for you pay by the pound, so it's very inexpensive. Um, I did it that way because I really wanted to make sure that I was buying t-shirts to cut up that nobody wanted.

And so I would be, you know, keeping, keeping those things from going to a landfill as opposed to cutting up, you know, a band t-shirt that somebody would really want or something like that, you know, so I wanted to make sure that I gave it a chance to sell somewhere and then I went somewhere else. So I, I really wasn't, I was just looking for color mostly and any kind of t-shirt works fine and you'll see as you start cutting them up what you prefer, the feel of, um, but you need you need a lot of them, you know, 9 to 11 t-shirts for a basket, so. You know, just see what you can find. Um, OK, let's see. Oh, how much yarn does it take to make the basket?

I actually don't know the yardage of the yarn, but I do know that it took about 9 large size t-shirts. So if you're making your own yarn, um, you know, you would need, I would get like 11 just to be sure of large size t-shirts just to make sure, um, but yeah, that's I I don't actually know what the real yardage is because there was no ball band for my yarn, so I really don't know, um. Do I sell this yarn? I do not sell this yarn. This, I just cut up t-shirts and make useful things out of them.

Um, yeah, I don't, I don't sell it, but you probably could, you know, repurposed yarn or repurposed t-shirts into yarn. All right, um, Hannah B says, I think I'm gonna make one for the back of the toilet for toilet paper. It'll be great for that, I think. Yes, it would be nice and sturdy for that. Yeah, this is a, um, and you could size it exactly to the top of your tank, you know, just create a rectangle that's the size that can fit on there or however, you know, however big you want it to be to go around the you know, a couple of rolls of toilet paper or whatever, um, and then, yeah, just start working in the round after you make your rectangle and then there you are, yeah, very easy.

All right, well thank you guys so much for joining me. Um, if anybody is a creative crochet corner gold member, um, or a craftsy premium member, I am going to be doing another tutorial in about a little over 20 minutes, um, for this bag. This is a scrappy project, so it's another Earth Day themed project. Um, just kind of using what you have on hand to create a really fun cute bag. So these are, this is made, you know, out of a whole bunch of different scraps that I just had laying around, um, to make this bag.

So, um, if you guys are members, I would love to see you over there. I hope you guys have a great day. I hope you enjoy working on this project. Thank you guys so much for being here. Bye everybody.