Tuesday 28 May 2013

Plarn and Arrested Development

Sunday I spent the day marathon watching the 4th season of Arrested Development and knitting.

What was I knitting you ask?

Plarn! The latest trend in enviro-upcycling, Ok, I have no idea what the enviro-upcycling trends are or even if I used that word correctly but it is something I read in a book (yes book) and thought I should give it a try.  I wanted to have a little basket to hold my facecloths in the bathroom so I that would be a good place to start.

'Plarn' is basically what people call it when you cut a plastic bag into a solid strip and then use it to knit something. There are some amazing bags and other items made with this material that you can find online. Seeing as I just learned how to knit in March, I'm decided not doing anything fancy.

After cutting up a bunch of plastic bags (all the pics I saw online had people with red and white bags but I only had one of those, the rest being ugly green, greys, and brown) into strips, I knitted a basic square base. I then used it as a rough guide on how big to make the sides. I made four different sides and then used hemp thread I had to 'stitch' them together.

Voila! A basket made of plastic bags.




I think it would look better if I had better coloured bags to start with but it is just for my facecloths in the bathroom so it will do just fine. I don't think I will be making a purse out of this material anytime soon unless the grocery store starts handing out prettier bags.

No comments: