I recently learned how to crochet. I did so after learning how to spin plastic into yarn. One of the things I realized is that there is a lot of plastic in my life. Grocery bags have been replaced with reusable ones but I have bread bags and cereal bags, etc. And we’ve learned over the last few months that all the plastic we were chucking into the recycle bin wasn’t actually being recycled. Now a lot of people are trying to do zero waste and that’s all well and good but sometimes, you gotta buy a box of cereal because homemade granola is expensive.
I once got as far as saving bags to make something-- a crochet floor mat, I think-- but never got that far. I do have a similar problem with not having a safe place to recycle bag plastic.
Did you actually spin this? I’ve only seen the thing where people cut up bags and then crochet with plastic strips before, but this looks far nicer.
AIMR
(Linda -2024 Choose Projects that You Want to Do :us:)
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I made a little plarn basket to hold my sponge brushes. It is sturdy and easy to clean or dry off if it gets wet. I used several colored plastic bags but I twisted all of the strips by hand. Thanks for the tutorial…might give it another try since I still have a small stash of blue bags. Our city is moving toward no plastic bags soon so maybe a bag made of plastic bags would be a good thing to make!
Have made about 7 sleeping mats for the homeless thus far, about a dozen pillows with straps (I use the scraps from creating the plarn for stuffing), also some mats for kitties that needed them, oh and a crate cover (stuffed with shipping peanuts for insulation) for winter. (Had noticed when they had coolers to get into their nails were scratching the styrofoam, bits sticking to their fur was then infested when cleaning themselves.)
I TRY to fold my bags, into quarter-fold, as I receive them and cut them into four “squares.” I also tend to sort by color (I’m a Virgo) and place them into ziploc bags (press the air out). They take up a lot less space that way til your close to ready to use them. I’ve got weights of each of the things that I tend to make so I can weigh a bag of bags to know if I have enough for completing or get close to completing a project.
We have an organization here, in Nashville, that takes them and gets them to the appropriate organizations for us.
Will see if I can get pix of my process on here. At least the part I have photos of right now. I haven’t done a pic upload on this yet! Hopefully these make sense. Oh and I should’ve said before that I stuff the “scraps” and broken bags into a newspaper bag sleeve and tie a knot in it when full to stuff in those pillows so the scraps don’t “escape.”
It’s been years since I made any, but I didn’t spin it then. I will definitely be sure to remember that when I finally get back to it because what little I did crochet split like crazy. I have bags of ripped bags ready to be made into plarn (the intention was to crochet sleeping mats), it’s just a question of finding the time and the space.
I’ll have to keep pillows in mind. Stuffing with the extra bits is a great idea.
I have tried doing plarn a few times but never the spun. Is the spun version difficult to work with? I always found it too fiddly for knitting. I don’t know how to crochet so don’t know if it’s different even without spinning.
Hopefully these make sense. Oh and I should’ve said before that I stuff the “scraps” and broken bags into a newspaper bag sleeve and tie a knot in it when full to stuff in those pillows so the scraps don’t “escape.”
