Five spools of fuchsia thread? Why do I have five?! I don’t have any fuschia fabric and I don’t have any plans to make anything in that color—it doesn’t suit me.

Yesterday, before placing an order for thread that changes color in the sun (check it out here, I took stock of my sewing supplies. It turns out that I have way too many spools of thread colors I’ll probably never use, as well as a gazillion bobbins half full of thread in colors that I’ll probably never use.

Before the recycle/upcycle bug really took root in me, I would have pulled the thread off the bobbins and tossed it all away. Not anymore. I spent most of the evening mulling over project ideas. At the same time, I was cutting t-shirts into strips. This cutting is one of the early steps in a fun and easy process that turns tees into yarn that I can crochet into really cool stuff.

Then it hit me: Use the unwanted and leftover thread on the spools and bobbins to sew together fabric strips.

What a great way to add interesting visual texture to my crocheted fabric, as well as double the thickness of the T-shirt yarn.

I can’t wait to show you the Bucket Hat I’m making. The project will be in the alternaCrafts ebook that’s in the works. It’ll include step-by-step instructions to create the sewn T-shirt yarn and crochet the hat.