T-Shirt Scrap Rug

When I finished making the t-shirt quilt a couple months ago, I put all of the shirts in a garbage bag, with the intention of taking them out to the dumpster. And then my conscious kicked in, and I just couldn't bear to throw away an entire, full garbage bag of fabric that I KNEW I could do something with. So, I sucked it up and ripped the bag open again, and commenced making this rug from the scraps.

My grandma taught me how to make scrap/fabric rugs when I was very young (my first rug is still in my present bedroom, still in use, just a little one next to my bed), before I had learned how to crochet. She started the project, handed me a crochet hook, and taught me the basic single crochet stitch. Which, after finishing that rug, I promptly forgot, not to make the connection between yarn crocheting and rug making again until I was about 19.

First you tear or cut all the fabric into strips, with slit-holes on either end, which you use to loop the strips into one long strand. Then, you commence with the crocheting (using the largest hook you can find at your craft store), being super careful to add enough slip stitches on the ends, and to keep your stitches loose enough that the rug can expand without folding up on itself. Since I had so many shirts, I started with the black ones in the center, then moved on to the navy ones, the coloreds, and the white/greys. The blacks and navies tend to blend together, if I had to redo it, I would probably separate them.