Upcycling fabric teabags into yarn-2

Yesterday, I posted about turning silk teabags into yo yo circle embellishments.

I am a total tea afficianado-

I drink it from morning to night.

White, black, red, green…

I love it.

My husband is a jazz musician,

and when his trio plays at

our favorite bistro,

they always immediately make me

a cup of green tea.

I was just dazzled by the gorgeousness of the flavor of  a new  tea, and was delighted when the server told me that it was because the tea was in a silk bag.   There was no way I was going to throw that bag away, so it came home with me, and inspired me to start experimenting with the fabric from cloth teabags.

I wondered if the shape of teabags and being made of cloth would make a difference to the flavor of the tea, and in lots of cases, I would think so…

Anyhow… I’ve been sampling several different teas that come in cloth bags – and have been playing with the sheer fabric that the teabags are made from.

I let the teabags dry out after I have

sipped up the tea.

Then, open the bag, empty it, and pull

the edges apart.

It ends up as a small rectangle.

Cut a narrow strip along the long edge of

the rectangle, almost to the short end.

Turn, and cut another strip parallel to the first,

again, almost to the edge. You’re cutting a

continuous strip, and will end up with

approximately one yard of narrow ribbon yarn.

Wrap the ribbon yarn

onto a bobbin

and then -

you can either

weave with it,

or crochet with it.

I crocheted flowers with

the upcycled teabag fabric

ribbon yarn:

With a 1.5 mm steel

crochet hook:

Ch 4, join to form ring.

(Ch 5, sc into ring) 5 times.

Sl st last st to 1st.

Pull yarn end through last loop on hook.

Stitch it to something,  (in this case a sampler that I am weaving with natural cotton yarn and silk thread and stitch a bead in the center of each flower.

Here the flowers are appliqued to the sampler:

And here, you can see some of the yo yo circles,  a small diamond shape of inlay weaving with the ribbon yarn, and then at the lower edge of the photo, another crocheted applique that has beads stitched into open spaces in the crochet:

And, I have been doing other interesting things with the sheer fabric teabags….

I’ll be posting more about this fun upcycling project, so stay tuned!