Recycle, Reuse, Repurpose: Thinning Out Your Swim T-Shirt Collection

Photo Courtesy: Emily Thirion

By Emily Thirion, Swimming World College Intern.

Whether you are an agegrouper or a newly-minted swammer, chances are you have an excessive amount of swimming T-shirts overloading your closet. It’s the beginning of March and nearly time to begin spring cleaning. This often involves purging your wardrobe of unwanted or unwearable articles of clothing. While we love the T-shirts that we have collected over the years spanning countless meets, at some point they overwhelm the rest of our clothing.

Discarding perfectly good clothing is wasteful, so without further ado, we have some ideas how you can reuse, recycle, or donate your bits an pieces of your T-shirt collection.

1). The famous T-shirt quilt

Photo Courtesy: flickr, @Sonja Lovas

This is one of the most commonly used and recognized forms of repurposing a bunch of t-shirts at once. Many swimmers receive the quilt as a birthday, Christmas, or graduation present at some point throughout their careers. They are warm and practical. But what most people don’t know is how easy they are to craft on your own. This website gives directions that are clear-cut and easy to follow along with if you want to try and make a quilt of your own. Both YouTube and Pinterest offer dozens of sets of directions ranging from simple to complex depending on how intricate you want your quilt to be. It is a great project to begin during taper or through off-season to kill some time.

2). Donate them to a family member, friend, or an organization

Photo Courtesy: Maddie Kyler

Oftentimes, swimming is a family sport. Many swimmers have younger siblings who also compete in the sport. Little siblings love to get gifts from older family members who they look up to, especially a sibling or a cousin who they can see working hard and succeeding every day. If you don’t have swimmers in your extended family, there is never a shortage of younger swimmers on your club or Y team. In giving your T-shirts to the younger members of your team, you are demonstrating to them what they can become and where they can go if they, too, commit to the sport. Many different organizations also ask for old T-shirts throughout the year, so keep your eyes peeled for a local charity looking for clothes.

3). No-sew T-shirt tote bag

This DIY website claims that you can make a T-shirt tote bag without sewing anything in ten minutes or less. Swimmers are always looking for a new way to tote around all of their gear, and many are sorely in need of a new deck bag. An easy way to show off the meets you have attended and a practical way to carry your stuff is with a home-made tote.

4). Up cycled pillow

Photo Courtesy: Day Donaldson

It may be really hard to part with your favorite swim tee when you outgrow it, but one way to hang onto it for a while longer is to turn it into a throw pillow. Again, if you don’t know how to sew, these instructions are for you. They are simple to follow and the process isn’t time consuming. You can take your pillow on deck or on your next road trip to an away meet. Sweet dreams!

5). Art canvas

Athletes across sports frame their jerseys or pieces of equipment – swimmers can too. T-shirts can be a unique means of creating individual pieces of wall art. You can frame the T-shirts on canvases, however many or few as you want in total. It’s a really cool means of covering a big space with something personal while also demonstrating your success and work ethic.

6). Dust rags

Photo Courtesy: Instructibles, @Kinderhook

If you are a collegiate athlete living in the dorms or off-campus housing, you have to clean up after yourself. And if you’re an agegroup swimmer, your parents are always looking for dust rags. Old T-shirts that have become ratty or are stained are perfect to use as cleaning supplies.

There are literally hundreds of creative ways to repurpose old T-shirts. The few listed above are just the common ones. DIY craft websites, such as this one, or Pinterest are truly great places to start looking. If you have more ideas or a favorite craft project with your old T-shirts, let us know in the comments below!

-All commentaries are the opinion of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Swimming World Magazine nor its staff.

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Amy Ksiezopolski Winkler

5 years ago

This is better!

Jocelyn Isham

5 years ago

Reply to Amy Ksiezopolski Winkler

Amy Ksiezopolski Winkler aw… The shiny finals formalwear!

Jocelyn Isham

5 years ago

Reply to Amy Ksiezopolski Winkler

Amy Ksiezopolski Winkler and I have t-shirt pillowcase to pass on ?

Jocelyn Isham

5 years ago

Deanna Rink McKeown Amy Amy Ksiezopolski Winkler. Show them your stuff!

Todd Schleuning

5 years ago

Please also consider framing your swim tee shirts. They make great decoration and a great display of your memories and accomplishments. They’re also a great gift for any swimmer in your life. Please visit our website to see our patented Shart® T-Shirt Frame which makes it easy to frame your t-shirt yourself.