Experiments in Plarn

So while busy creating holiday gifts, I decided to experiment with Plarn. What, do you ask, is Plarn? It stands for "plastic yarn". It's made from strips of plastic bags by upcyclers, fashionistas, and exceptionally desperate knitters/crocheters who have been deprived of wool. You can find the tutorial I used at My Recycled Bags, which also offers lots of great projects that you can make with your finished Plarn.

Don't expect Plarn making to be fast or easy. My Plarn took about four days to create. I found that the plastic strips were constantly breaking on me because of the low-mill bags I was using. Whether your strips break or not, you'll still find yourself with a surprising amount of plastic leftover at the end of your project, which is why it's recommended that you recycle your remnants. Fortunately, most grocery stores have a plastic bag recycling bin that you can feed your bag bits to.

 When I created my Plarn, I started by sorting my plastic bags by color. I didn't use the odd-colored bags for now, but they'd be good for accents or small embellishments. I removed any bags that were overly-torn, dirty, or otherwise not suitable.

You create your Plarn by folding grocery bags into narrow strips and cutting off the handles and bottoms. Then you slice strips off of that, unfold them, and join them together with a u-shaped knot.

What is surprisingly easy is actually crocheting with the Plarn. It's a lot stronger once it's worked up than it is while you're creating it. After all, you're essentially working with a double-strand, and crocheted pieces are strong enough to begin with. I decided to create a tote bag--a generally useful gift, generally appreciated by the sort of person who also appreciates upcycling, recycling, reusing, and all that jazz. So far I haven't found any difficulty using Plarn for anything that regular yarn can be crocheted into, although it is a little tough on your hands. I would suggest taking breaks, and maybe switching it up with a light yarn project.

The bottom of a tote bag.

I keep my Plarn tote progress and other projects on Ravelry--you should join me there! What projects are you making lately? Tell all in the comments! (Well, except that thing that happened in Vegas...you know the rules.)