We Love Recycled T-Shirts

It’s true. We have boxes upon boxes of t-shirts in the back. Old jobs that never got picked up, inventory, mistakes—we’ve got so many old t-shirts in our warehouse that we wanted to think of something fun we could do with them. And you know what AMBRO Manufacturing loves? Recycled t-shirts. It’s great when it’s 10 percent plastic bottle, but it’s even better when we get to turn something that was essentially unusable into something fun and brand new!

First things first, make sure you use the right items. You’ll need fabric scissors, not regular kitchen scissors. This type of project works best with a sewing machine, but if you’re a great hand sewer than more power to you! (We’re a little spoiled around here by having access to so many different machines).

Keep in mind, larger t-shirt sizes might need to be cut down in order to look more bag-like. I would refrain from using smaller t-shirt sizes because your bag might not be as big as you’d like it to be. Remember, you want these bags to be able to actually hold things!

For our first project, we decided to use this 3XL t-shirt left over from a softball program who orders from us every year. No mistake, we just made an extra t-shirt—and it’s just been sitting here! I decided this was the perfect opportunity to make a little something out of it.

First, I cut off both sleeves. Be careful if you’re going to cut both sides at once as the shirt might be wrinkled one way on one side but another on the other. This ends up with uneven cuts (which I am very guilty of). Either cut one side at a time or make sure your cutting is even.

Next, you’re going to cut the collar. Try to make it deep but not too wide (that was my mistake here, I shouldn’t have gone so wide on my shirt—but you live and learn!).

If you’re using a particularly large shirt, cut some of the bottom off so your bag isn’t as deep. You might also have to cut down the sides and take the shirt in closer to the imprint. I did this with the shirt that I used and resewed the sides.

Now, it’s time to break out the machine!

What we did was we hemmed both sides of the shirt and what used to be the collar before we even sewed any material together. This added to a nice, clean finish.

Make sure your shirt is inside out and sew the bottom together. If you want to make your bag more bag-like, you can do what we did and sew the corners diagonally. This takes away that boxy feeling.

Now, you have a brand new bag from that old t-shirt of yours!

Let us know what type of old t-shirt projects you love! We love to share here.

Have to replace that tee now that it’s a bag? Get a quote at 908-806-8337 or email us at Sales@Special-Ts.com.