T-shirts in rugs - Have you tried them?

If not, you should!

It all started when Saudra Porter of Woodland Junction challenged rug hookers to use alternate materials to hook a rug and offered several antique patterns to choose to hook.  I chose Magdelana's pup. 

I'm a huge fan of Magdalina Briner's style having hooked many of her rugs over the years.  In fact my Star Rug Company logo is patterned off of one of her rugs so decided  to hook the rug using her signature colors instead of the muted colors of the antique rug. Don't get me wrong, I love the colors of the antique rug but wanted to see if I could create something similar  to Magdalina's color palette. What surprised me about the challenge was my fondness for using alternate materials and think that I will definitely use them more often in replicating antique rugs. 

My favorite material by far  is T-shirts.  I just love the look of the rolled fabric in a rug.  Besides being quite inexpensive, you get a lot a material from one T-Shirt.  I also dyed one of them as well using Rit dye and it turned out wonderfully mottled when done.  Don't know how to cut the t-shirts to roll into a ball? There are many You Tube Videos on how to cut a T-Shirt to get a continuous strip for knitting. I hope I have intrigued you to pull out one of your t-Shirts destined for the thrift store and give it a try.  Happy Hooking, Maria