T-Shirt to Tote Bag in 10 Minutes

This is my favorite project so far, super easy and fast, and it fits RockIt Events motto: Reduce, reuse and recycle to a T (pun intended!) I also love that I can keep some of my favorite clothing items and give them a second or third life! I used different kinds of shirts to see what kind of bags they would make, i personally love how the striped H&M dress redo turned out.

Cut off the arms of the shirt. Cut on the arm side of the seam, leaving the seam intact to make a stronger handle.

You can free hand the neckline, or take a bowl and mark a line where you want to cut. You can skip this step if you are using a tank top.

Take your scissors and snip the bottom of the garment making 1" strips all the way across the shirt.

Know start working your way across the bottom of the shirt by tying your strips together

Okay, this is going to sound really complicated, but it’s NOT, promise. Take your first pair of fringe and tie it into a knot, then tie two more pairs. Now if you lift your bag you’ll see that although the pairs are pulling the bag together, there’s a hole between each pair. This next step will close those holes.

In this photo you see three sets of fringe that have been tied in knots. What I do next is grab one strand from the middle set (the one with the arrow pointing left) and tie it in a knot with one of the strands on the left set. Then I take the other strand from the middle set (the one with the arrow pointing right) and tie it in a knot with one of the strands on the right set.

Then I take the remaining strand on the right set and tie it to the next set of strands, and so on and so forth until all the strands are tied.

Now turn your t-shirt right side out again and voila, you’re done!