I decided I wanted to make another plarn tote. I’ve had some plarn ready to go for a while, I’d even separated the white strips from ones with color. So what’s plarn you may ask. Plarn is plastic yarn. It’s made of plastic bags such as grocery bags. I made my first tote bag of plarn in 2008 after watching a video with some random statistics about plastic bags in landfills and other undesirable locations like the ocean. I’d heard of plarn a couple times before but hadn’t tried it yet. That video and those random stats lit my fire. I looked up a couple different ways to make it and got to work. I used Kate E. Austin’s Art Blog instructions for plarn; the instructions and pictures are easy to follow. Below you can see photos of my first plarn tote. I used no pattern and hardly even bothered to count stitches for the most part. I used black plarn as a contrasting border and to reinforce the seams. I didn’t really go about the whole thing in any kind of well planned mathematical way but it still turned out nicely! I used about 50 plastic grocery bags to make it. I use it a lot; for groceries and to carry things such as books or binders. It stretches a bit when there is heavy stuff in it but it keeps its form. I’ve carried some heavy things like a gallon of milk and a 2 liter soda without worrying about it even the slightest. It sparks people’s curiosity and I’m always getting questions about it. When people find out I made it myself they are dazzled and in awe. It’s a fun little conversation starter.
After making this, my plastic bag stash has grown. I always saved bags just because it’s handy to have them around for little garbage cans, packing material and what not. Now I have sorted through my plastic bags. They are sorted by colors, types and even brand. The Target bags have a different texture and quality so one day I’ll make a Target tote. I have a collection of yellow bags that grows slowly. Once you start collecting bags to make plarn you notice how dull grocery bags are and you ache for colored bags. I’ve had the thought cross my mind to shop at a specific store just to get their bags! But then I realize that I’m trying to be green and that would be wasteful; for every bag I use they need to make another. I’ve settled for what ever comes my way is mine. I’m sure if I was really desperate for more plastic bags I could ask friends and neighbors to share some of their bounty.
I enjoy the randomness of the plarn. You can’t predict where the colors will end up or even how much color you’ll have in an area. The colored plarn bag I’m working on now has a large variety of white bags with lots of different colored logos so it’ll be even more random than my first tote. For the two totes I’m working on now I’m using single crochet while my first and second bags I used double crochet. I am curious to see which lends itself better to carrying things. I like the flexibility that the double crochet gives the bag and I am a bit concerned that the single crochet will be slightly less flexible. Flexibility also depends on the width of the plastic strips, how tight you crochet and the size hook. For the first bag I used strips a bit over an inch in width which was sometimes a bit awkward to work with even with the K hook. 
For my 2 current projects I cut the plastic bags about 3/4 of an inch wide. As I said before I’m not approaching this very mathematically so you can probably guess I’m not measuring the width of each strip. The process of making plarn is tedious enough, I don’t want to measure each strip exactly! I’ve added a photo of my single crochet color logo-ed plarn project. The fun thing about plarn is that if you have a big enough plastic bag stash you can’t really run out of yarn! All you have to do is cut more strips, string them together and add them to the end of your project plarn. I enjoy the tediousness of making the plarn and it can take a long time to make what you need, but I enjoy it none-the-less.
The attack of the amigurumi has continued with the creation of a little devil, a cupcake, a bird, and a little bear. The little devil was created from a book titled “Creepy Cute” and it seemed like a good place to start in that book as it didn’t have too many little details to make. There are other characters like a ninja, a vampire, a zombie bride and groom. The devil was perfect because it required red and black of which I still have a bunch. Plus it kind of reminds me of a cat. That red yarn is darned hard to photograph though, ugh. I made the little devil without a hitch and it’s a cutie! My favorite details are the little horns and its tail.
The cupcake was a pattern I found online at Ana Paula’s Amigurumi Patterns. I liked the idea of trying out the cupcake because a) it looks delicious and b) I get to sew on colorful beads. Before starting this project I had to scrounge around my yarn stash for some brown yarn. I ended up reclaiming some from a very sad looking scarf which worked out perfectly. The brown yarn is a bit on the soft side and just as with the turtle from my previous post it doesn’t keep its shape or sit quite right. I should really pay closer attention to the yarn softness and crochet a lot tighter to counteract that potential issue. After making the cupcake I think it might be cute to crochet a bowl of fruit and I’ve already added a pattern book on food to my Amazon wishlist for this purpose. The photo of the cupcake is terrible and I may reshoot to do it some justice. I was exploring the house for settings and ended up just putting it on a plate. The photo is blurry because I had to skip the flash or the pink icing looked white.
The little bird is teeny and precious. I found this pattern online as well but this time on Deviant Art. The user Sparrow-dream created the pattern herself and wrote it out for other people to try. I like the shape of the bird and how the head and body are one piece so less sewing. The little wings are too adorable! The pattern called for pipe cleaners for legs but I decided to create legs using a chain which looks a little odd since they kind of curl a bit. I also did something a bit different for the comb along the top of its head. I used the same instructions for the edge of the cupcake icing to make its comb. I also skipped the felt beak and just sewed on a little bit of pink for the mouth.
Now to the most recent amigurumi to participate in this invasion; a little brown bear. The bear pattern came from the book “Tiny Yarn Animals” mentioned in my previous post. I started making a beaver and then decided on making a koala and then just made it into a bear. I don’t have any gray to make a koala anyway. So my beaver turned into a bear. I took an idea from the koala pattern and even made little ears with pink inside which is darned adorable. This little bear has eyes, a nose and even a silly little grin. I didn’t get any good photos of it though so that’ll have to get done another day along with the cupcake.
After receiving an amigurumi book titled “Crobots” I finally decided to try it out. I figured that if I made mistakes in the robot it wouldn’t be as obvious as if I made mistakes on a more identify-able thing like an animal. The instructions for the Crobot were very easy to follow which was a great way to start something new and potentially daunting. The Crobot is a music robot and wears headphones. I like the crobots because they require beads and findings as embellishments which means I get to use my large collection of beads as well as the yarn. It was a lot of fun sewing on the little beady bits and figuring out that mess. I think I’ll need some better and more organized tools. I need a couple smaller crochet hooks for amigurumi and at the moment I just have a zippered canvas bag for all my hooks which will become cumbersome with more hooks. I think I’ll also look into getting a beading needle though I’m pretty sure I have one some where. One thing I do know is that I don’t need any more beads or findings!
Let me introduce Boopbot:
Boop bop boop boop bop
I have two other amigurumi books that I have just never dared to make anything from. One is “Tiny Yarn Animals” and the other is “Creep Cute.” I decided I was ready to try one from these books. I decided to go with a cute little turtle from “Tiny Yarn Animals.” I used a yarn that was very soft which I’ve now learned is not the best choice unless I use a smaller hook or crochet a lot tighter. The little turtle has a soft pink shell and blue for its body. This book has two strikes against it: (1) No instructions for how to put all the pieces together, (2) No totals for stitches at the end of a row. I managed to put the little turtle together without an issue luckily and it’s pretty darn cute! Next I’ll have to try something from “Creepy Cute.” I can’t wait.
The eagerly awaited moment has come and gone. My niece and nephew have received their goodies! Both of them really like their blankets. I have yet to ask my sister in law if I can post a photo of the kids with their faces showing on my blog. I do have a photo that has no face showing so I’ll post that. My nephew was already suffering from Christmas gift overload when he received my blanket so his reaction was a bit lack luster. Later in the evening the family was leaving and he grabbed his new blanket to snuggle with in the car which squelched any doubt in my mind that he might not like it as much as I had anticipated. My niece showed her enthusiasm right when she opened it, yay. I’ve never given gifts that involved so much work on my end and it was quite satisfying.
The kids also received the little elf shoes. The ones for my nephew didn’t fit even in the slightest way but my niece seemed to fit fine in the ones I made for her. I had assumed that because I was able to squeeze my foot into one of hers when I made it. They didn’t get worn though, which I should have known; they aren’t big on wearing shoes or socks.
I also owe you a photo of my sister’s hat/scarf set so here it is: 
I’ve been a bit quiet but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been crocheting. I am feeling a serious addiction to crochet at the moment and I can’t sit in front of the TV without wanting to crochet something. That desire has lead to a couple things that didn’t develop into anything usable. I tried to make up my own pattern for 2 hats without success and attempted to make a crocheted gift box which looks quite sad. Some things that went well are the granny square slippers from The Purl Bee. I decided to make them in red for my niece and nephew. Those kids are getting a lot of crocheted things this Christmas, LOL. I even added a bell to the tips which makes them officially “Elf Slippers.” Now I just hope they fit! They are darned cute though.
I also made a hat and scarf set for my sister. I used the Divine pattern for the hat and Simply Soft yarn. It was a little more light weight yarn than I realized but it certainly is soft. Then I grabbed some fleece yarn I’ve had for years and made a scarf to match the hat. I bought the fleece yarn years ago with the intention of making a scarf for my sister and I’m happy that’s what it was used for eventually. I had a skein of white and one of variegated white/blue. The yarn was hard to work with because it’s fuzzy and the base of the yarn is a tiny string with the fuzz coming off it. The scarf is about 6ft long and I tried not to make it too wide since the current fashion is skinny scarves. The scarf is snuggly and I hope she likes it. I don’t have a photo yet and my camera battery died so it’s getting revived at this moment. I’ll add a photo later.
After my exploration into the world of hats last weekend I found myself totally addicted. I cranked out 5 other hats this week. I tried making hats back in 2005 when I first started teaching myself crochet but I didn’t get very far. I first tried going around in just a circle but ended up with a strange triangular funnel shape which I turned into a toy mouse. I believe that the mouse has since ‘died’ after a couple years of playtime. Last summer a friend gave me a crochet book from which I learned how to crochet a coaster which was successful! I then tried a hat from the same book but it was a strange hat-like disc too large and too shallow to actually function as a hat, or anything else for that matter. I was again defeated by hats. Between then and now I made a baby hat successfully so I was grasping something. I’m glad my crochet knowledge and understanding has grown enough to make sense of patterns without disastrous results.
The Week of Hats
- Monday: Maroon Divine Hat for myself with yarn received from a fellow Freecycler (so I have no idea what it was exactly aside from soft).
- Tuesday: Easy Double Crochet hat with left over fuzzy orange yarn. Pulled out a fore mentioned pink hat-like disc and made my own variation of Easy Double Crochet hat with fpdc & bpdc.
- Wednesday: Attempted 2 hats in red, neither a success. Started an Easy Double Crochet Hat in red.
- Thursday: Finished Easy Double Crochet hat in red with variation of fpdc. Started Crochet Head Hugger.
- Friday: Finished Crochet Head Hugger with variation of one puff stitch instead of one double crochet to add more fullness to the hat.
(Sorry the image is so small, I’m having issues with the image display squishing the picture completely)
I’m not sure yet what’s next in my crochet adventures. I was speaking with my husband and he said it sounds like I need to work on another blanket. LOL. I will donate most of these hats to the Mitten Trees at school. I looked up crochet mitten patterns but have decided against that. I don’t know yet if I’ll make any scarves, maybe. I think I want to make a nice hat for my sister in Portland, OR. She moved there from Atlanta, Georgia so she might need a couple cute hats.
I received a lot of compliments at work on my maroon Divine hat. It matches wonderfully with my red scarf, which at least 2 people noticed and complimented. You could nearly hear another person’s jaw hit the floor when I told them that I made the hat. This is what I was looking for when I searched for crochet hat patterns. I wanted something that when done right didn’t look like a home made hat (kind of like the pink and red hats I made this week). For the maroon hat I used a smaller hook to get a tighter feel and less holes; it worked out well.
Christmas will be arriving shortly in our home so I don’t know how much crochet will be done this weekend.
I mentioned in my last post that I was going to make some hats, gloves or scarves for the school I’m working at now that I’ve finished the Mario blanket. I searched from some crochet hat patterns and found that the easy level ones were rather boring. I found one that I really liked with a cool spiral effect but I’d have to learn a whole new stitch. I looked for some video instructions for the the stitch front post double crochet, also known as fpdc, and saw that it wasn’t particularly difficult. I dove right into the pattern starting with my new friend the Magic Ring and had a great time working on the hat. I was very determined to finish it tonight and worked on it for several hours. It wasn’t difficult just a lot of work. I finished the hat around 8pm after starting it around 4pm. I had already decided early on today that it would be an easy-going, do-nothing, lazy day since the other days of the holiday were busy! Between working on the hat I did get 2 loads of laundry in though, so not a complete waste.
The hat is titled Divine and I found it at Rheatheylia.com. It took a bit more yarn than I had anticipated but luckily I had just enough left over Pound of Love blue.
Another project I’d like to do is granny square slippers from The Purl Bee. Too much to create and not enough time!
After I worked my way around the blanket attaching the squares I then went back and sewed together the other seams. This went rather quickly since there was no need to stop and make more squares. The lack of need to stop also made it easy to sit and work for 3 or 4 hours at a time. I worked a lot on it Thursday before Thanksgiving dinner and then on Friday. When all the seams were completed I did a single crochet border around the blue squares with blue to even the edges. Before doing that I had started adding the black border but noticed some uneven edges where squares met at the corners hence the decision to single crochet a blue edge. After completing the blue edge I added two rows of double crochet in black with a last row of single crochet in black. Then it was complete!
Not quite. I went over the whole blanket meticulously and redid 2 or 3 seams between reds and a couple of peach in the face. I also pulled out a couple tails that were unraveling and hid them better. I definitely see an improvement in my work from the beginning of his face to the blue background. When I give the blanket I will probably include some long bits of yarn of each color in case there is some unraveling after playing with the blanket though I doubt it will be necessary.
The blanket has a bit of an identity crisis in my eyes. Now that I’m complete it’s a bit smaller than I was thinking so really it would be more appropriately named a throw; like something you use while sitting on the couch watching TV. Also the squares are small and kind of tight so it’s not a very soft flexible throw so now it could almost be considered a mat or even something to hang on the wall. The peach yarn dictated the size of yarn to be used in the whole project as it was very difficult to find something suitable. In retrospect I could probably have used a larger hook for a little bit more looseness in the stitches.
Super Mario Blanket Stats
- 22 working days
- 35.5inches x 45.5inches
- 20 x 30 squares = 600 total
- 4 colors
- Channels watched: TLC, USA, AE
I’ve made a video/slide show of the Mario photos using Picasa 3. I’ve never used their video feature and it looked ok in the program now I’m just waiting for Youtube to process it for viewing. I’ll post a link as soon as I can. Now that I’m done with this project it’s time to think about my next project. The school I’m working at is collecting hats, scarves and mittens so I will take a stab at making those.
I can’t wait for Christmas morning. *grin*
[EDIT] Here’s the link to the video at Youtube: Mario Video
More blue squares and the edges have now been evened out. It’s looking really nice with the blue background. I decided on a buffer of 2 squares from Mario to the edge. I am looking forward to finishing up the blues and then put on a black border. I have one more row to attach at the bottom. For fun I’ve also taken a photo of the blue Pound of Love skein as I’ve pulled the yarn out the middle while working. There’s a nice large hole in the middle, which is actually considerably larger since I took the photo. I have the blanket laying on the floor right now for photos and Kes, the cat, it having a grand ol’ time laying on it. Of course, she’s the type to lay with or on anything that’s on the floor.
I’ve gotten a lot of work done since my last post. I had one minor set back though, but it’s been repaired. I crocheted a bunch of squares while watching Star Trek with my husband and he likes to help by cutting off the tails. One cut was apparently a bit too close and cut some important loops off. Sadly I didn’t realize this until I had already attached the square on one side to the blanket and started attaching more to the other side of it. I pulled my needle through and it all just fell apart. I had to detach the square and a couple others, take it apart and reattach what was removed. The whole thing probably took 20 to 25 minutes. Oi. When I told him about what happened he said that he knew he had cut one too close but didn’t want to tell me. I still let him cut off the tails but I made sure to let him know how close he can cut.
I really like how the blue is turning out. My skill of attaching the squares and hiding the tails has improved and I almost wish that I had done a better job with the face. I can’t wait to see how it looks when it’s done. My cat Onyx keeps on wanting to sit on the blanket but her nails get stuck in everything and I don’t want her to pull out the fibers of the yarn. I always try to make some space for her to sit on my lap under Mario which she is happy for. The blanket it getting big enough that it gets in her way though.
I didn’t do much crocheting on Saturday but instead my husband and I played the new Mario game for the Wii at his parents’ house. We had a great time with the two player game and we are equally bad. We played for a couple hours and then had to stop because we kept dying at a particular part in a final level. Can’t wait to play some more this Thursday after eating some turkey!
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