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Fashion Tech 2026

Tee Threads

A new step in upcycling textiles.

yarn test — © Iris Bekkers

With Tee Threads we create yarn from discarded T-shirts without shredding or spinning. By laser-cutting we've created yarn for knitters and hand-knitting machines. Now we're exploring ways to create yarn for industrial machines.

Everyone wears T-shirts.

What if you could rescue T-shirts from the waste pile and turn them into yarn without any shredders or spinners? That is the goal of our project, Tee Threads. Jersey T-shirts are a major problem in the second-hand textile sector: the material is not suitable for second-hand shops or for high-quality recycling, but incinerating it would be a terrible waste. At the same time, the supply is endless, since almost everyone wears T-shirts.

We sort T-shirts by color and laser-cut them into knitting yarns of various thicknesses. Over the past months, we have optimized this process and developed several yarns suitable for knitters and hand-knitting machines. Now we are going a step further and explore the potential of our yarn for industrial knitting machines.

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About Rosa Scholtens

Rosa Scholtens works as a value chain coordinator, system designer, and expert in circularity and regenerative value chains for the fashion and textile industry.
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