Rotten Bagel: Old T-shirts, New Bags, and the Beauty of Imperfection

Some T-shirts are bought because we want to wear them.

Others come home with us because of the lettering across the chest, a print, or a small detail we cannot walk past, even when we know the colour might not really suit us.

For Jan, it was the second kind that gradually began to fill her home.

Her fondness for them brought them home; the question of what to do with them came later. Then, one day, the shirts she had collected met another hobby, and Rotten Bagel began.

In the film introducing this small space, colourful T-shirts lie folded on shelves while crocheted bags hang and sit around the room. Thick fabric strips interlock into a visible texture. Some bags pair muted shades; others have bright colours peeking through the stitches.

The shape of the shirt has gone, but its colours and fragments of print continue their journey in a bag.

Along the way, those shirts have also helped their maker rediscover the pleasure of working with her hands.

Shirts she loved, and a craft she wanted to try

Before starting Rotten Bagel, Jan worked as a graphic designer and art director. Those experiences trained her eye for colour, lettering and visual detail.

When shopping for secondhand clothes, it was often the graphics or typography on a shirt that caught her attention. Some had details she liked enough to take home, even when she could not yet imagine how she would wear them.

Around the same time, Jan was looking for activities that would let her try something beyond digital work. Her curiosity gradually led her towards crafts, and one of the things she began exploring was crocheting bags.

The connection between shirts and bags came from the material in her hands.

Jan noticed that the yarn she had bought felt similar to T-shirt fabric. Looking back at her collection, she began to wonder: if she was not using the shirts as they were, could she cut them up and crochet with them instead?

She tried it, and found that the result had a different feel.

What had once been a shirt began to take a new shape, while her hobby gained a set of questions of its own to explore.

A small space for possibilities

Jan describes Rotten Bagel as a creative space: a small studio she started, with upcycling T-shirts into bags as its main focus.

The film shows a worktable, posters on the wall, shelves of shirts and a corner where she sits to crochet. Everything feels close to everyday life. The shirts on the shelves are ready to be taken down and considered as material for the next piece.

The name Rotten Bagel began with words she came across and thought sounded cute. Over time, she started to see a connection with what she was making.

The word 'rotten', with its suggestion of decay or deterioration, made Jan think of materials that people no longer use. Her bags come from bringing those things back and making something new.

Shirts that had not found a use entered a process of experimentation. They were cut, reshaped and rearranged until they became objects that could belong in someone's life again.

In this space, the fondness that once kept her collection growing has also become a resource for making.

Starting with colour, letting the print add detail

When a T-shirt becomes material for a bag, the way it is seen changes too.

A shirt holds a base colour, a print and perhaps some lettering. Once cut into strips and crocheted, those details appear differently. Some fold inwards, others peek out, and some end up next to a colour from another shirt.

Jan begins by pairing colours to picture the bag as a whole. The palette is her starting point; the prints on the shirts bring extra detail and playfulness as the work develops.

Her design experience continues to play a part, in a different way. The eye that once noticed the composition on a shirt now considers how those elements will live together after their form has changed.

In close-up, we see a crochet hook drawing fabric strips through one another. Greens, light shades and dark tones gradually become a single surface. Choosing colours happens alongside touching the material and watching the piece take shape.

A shirt chosen for its print may no longer show that image in full. Yet the details that remain still help make the bag what it is.

When the hands slow the mind

For someone used to working with digital tools, crochet offered Jan a different experience.

She had long been interested in handmade work, but had not had many opportunities to practise it. Once she began crocheting regularly, she discovered the relaxation and focus that came with attending to what was in front of her.

Watching her hands gently pull fabric through loops makes the rhythm of the work clear. The piece advances at the pace of its maker. Every stage requires her hands, and every stage offers something to learn.

Jan talks about trial and error as part of the process. She thinks, experiments and finds answers by doing the work herself.

Understanding gradually gathers in her hands as much as in her thoughts.

Moving from familiar yarn to strips cut from T-shirts gave her more room to get to know the material anew. A project that began with a small question still holds plenty of details to explore.

Imperfections worth passing on

When Jan talks about the appeal of craft, she values the maker's thinking and hands-on process. These gradually become visible in the work, through the shirts selected and the way their patterns are arranged in a bag.

She wants the people who use her bags to receive those stories too, including the imperfections that are part of the work.

This invites another look at the details: colours tucked between stitches, fragments of print visible only here and there, and textures inherited from each shirt. All come from her choices and experiments.

Rotten Bagel becomes more interesting as we learn what came before the bags. These were shirts Jan bought because she liked them, kept without knowing what to do with them, and eventually reconsidered as she questioned her growing collection.

The answer came when she tried using them in another way.

A shirt in a colour that might not suit her became a colour she chose to pair in a bag. An eye-catching print became a small detail between stitches. A hobby became a space that made her want to keep experimenting.

When a bag leaves the studio, it takes both its materials and its maker's thinking with it.

A shirt once folded on a shelf goes back out into the world, ready for life in a new form.