How To Make Scarf Made Of Shirts DIY

After buying three colorful second hand shirts, I decided to make a scarf using this Rock Mosaik DIY as a guidance.
It was an easy DIY; however, I made a few mistakes that made the process a bit longer than needed. I will share my story with you.

Supplies You Need For This DIY

• second hand cotton shirts with matching patterns
• a seam ripper
• thread in matching color
• a sewing machine or a needle you plan to sew it manually

DIY Steps

First, rip the tucks if any (even men’s shirts have some!) and cut off the sleeves and other parts.

Repeat the same step with two other shirts.

Now cut the shirts into sections of 18′ width or whatever is the final width of your scarf. The length was not important: Uneven pieces only made the scarf more interesting.
I used the front and back parts of the shirts as well as the sleeves. I mixed and matched the patterns by combining seven pieces together.

Now it’s time to sew them all on!

Here should be a picture of me trying my new scarf in front of a mirror. I did not take it, because I hated the result.
It was the case when it was too much of everything. The scarf turned out to be super long, heavy and weird. The only thing what was good was the width. I went back to my working place and ripped all the seams.

This time I threw away four pieces and left only three. It was sufficient to make the scarf long enough to wrap around the neck.
I tacked the pieces together and tried them on. Only after getting satisfied with the results, I sewed them.

Ok, now we can proceed to the next step of the DIY.
Open the seams, iron them flat…

..and top-stitch them.
Now make a fringe – the fringe fits well with the overall decomposed look of the scarf. Also the fringe fixes the edges, so we do not need any additional edge processing.

And here is comes, my new up-cycled scarf!

It goes well with my favorite second hand jeans shirt!

What I have learned from the experience

• do not get too many pieces with different patterns; most of the scarf would be wrapped around the neck, and the most of the pieces would be hidden anyway;
• take the shirts made of the same or similar fabric; if it is not the case then the fabric difference should be taken into consideration when cutting the pieces;
• after coming up with the pattern layout, tackle the pieces together and try them on your neck; it is possible that the layout would look very different while being worn;
• personally, I did not like the hard cotton fabric; I think it is better to use flannel as stated in the original instruction.

This is it!
Keep calm and make scarfs 🙂

Disclaimer: Yup, this post may contain affiliate links! If you buy something from me, I get some margarita money (not enough to buy a pair of shoes). Read more here.