Kim's Crochet Blog

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.