From Chef's Pants to Rag Rug

**This tutorial is intended for personal use only.**

Do you have 2 pairs of hideous vegetable-print chef's pants hanging around your house doing nothing but taking up space? You know the kind that Morimoto wears when he's knee deep in a food battle on that famous food channel. Well I do, and I've been holding on to these in hopes of recycling them into something useful. It just so happens that today I was in a crocheting kind of mood. I have always wanted a rag rug but never wanted to put the time and effort it took into creating one.

So....I pulled these babies out of the recycling pile and made yarn out of them. If any of you are interested in crocheting with cloth, check out my tutorial for t-shirt yarn. You can make a continuous piece of "yarn" with almost anything that is in a tube such as t-shirts and plastic bags. If it isn't in a tube, take it to your sewing machine and sew it into one (reinforce each seam by sewing it twice). You can use fabric straight off of the bolt, sheets, and even old dresses as long as you turn them into a tube first. If you are working with something that already has been sewn into a tube, I would suggest that you give the seams a go over another time so that it holds together after being cut into strips.



I decided that my yarn will be 1/2-inch. Using my rotary cutter made the cutting fast and easy. Just be sure that you do not cut all way to the end or you will end up with many 1/2-inch loops instead of a continuous piece of yarn.



Continue cutting until you have completed the entire length of the pant leg. Refer to my tutorial for the steps needed to complete the yarn process.



This is how much "yarn" I got from just one leg.



After 45 minutes, I have 4 hefty bundles of yarn for my project.



Here is my crocheted rag rug in progress.



You should give this a try sometime. It's loads of fun and a great way to recycle.

Aloha!