Last week I showed you how to make continuous t-shirt yarn. Since then I have been on a rampage using the yarn for different projects. Today I am making shoelaces from the t-shirt yarn. This is especially fun to show off school colors or to coordinate your shoelaces with a certain outfit. The colors are as endless as the colored tee shirts out there – which if you go to a thrift store you know they have every color of the rainbow.
Supplies:
T-shirt yarn
3/16″ Heat Shrink ‘ rel=nofollow target=_blank>3/16″ Heat Shrink
scissors
shoes
heat gun or hair dryer
stick pin
1. Cut a length of t-shirt yarn to the length you want it. For my canvas shoes I used 37”. I figured out the length by removing the existing shoelace and using that for my measurement.
2. Slide about a 1” piece of 3/16″ Heat Shrink ‘ rel=nofollow target=_blank>3/16″ Heat Shrink onto the end of your yarn leaving a little bit of a tail.
3. Use a stick pin to hold it in place while you blast it with a heat gun. This takes about 7 second
s. If you choose to use a hair dryer it takes a lot longer.
4. Let them cool, then cut a tiny bit of the heat shrink and the tail off. Repeat steps 2-4 for the other end of the tee shirt yarn.
The heat shrink makes it easy to thread through the shoe eyelets.
I added two colors to each shoe but you can do just one if you want. This is obviously a fairly cheap way to replace shoelaces. Your biggest expense is the heat shrink which can be purchased for about the price of a new pair of shoelaces at Target or Wal-mart.
Do you love upcycling old t-shirts? Check out these posts for more inspiration.
Left to Right: Ransom Note Sweatshirt, Painted Striped Shirt, Patriotic T-shirt Dress, Upcycled Stamped Dress, Stamped Valentine’s Day Scarf, Patchy Skirt.
That is such a super fun idea! I may have to go buys some tennis shoes just so I can make some cute laces..haha!
Ha! You totally should! 😉