Plarn Part I

Howdy folks! Jazmin here!

For my very first post I'd like to offer up something good for both the eco-friendly crafter and the environment. I'm talking about PLARN.

Plarn is yarn made from plastic bags and is super awesome for these reasons:

1) Reduce, reuse, recycle! Heck yeah! Lend a hand to Mother Nature!
2) It's a new medium of needlecraft to explore! Hooray!
3) Who doesn't have a drawer or shelf or closet full of plastic grocery bags that "might come in handy"? (And by "in handy" I mean that one time you make Halloween decorations and need something to stuff dummy dead bodies with.)

So I currently have about 80ish bags in my possession. Not as many dummy dead bodies as you would think. But a lot of yarn. And yes, I did take time to color separate them. Feel free to disregard, if so inclined.

This first post will be a demonstration on how to make plarn. Later I'll post a tutorial on how to make a reusable grocery bag from grocery bags! But for now, everybody make plarn.

Here's how to do it:

Start with a grocery bag. Lay it out as flat as possible. This is my method: Hold the two bottom corners and pull slightly apart, then, holding onto the bottom, give a tug on each handle and smooth out on a flat surface.

Fold it in half, and then in half again:

Cut off the bottom seam and handles, then cut into pieces somewhere around an inch long. No need to be precise, but try to keep them roughly the same size. If they're too thick, it will be hard to work with, too thin and it will break.

 Open up each section: you now have loops!

Take two loops and pass the end of one under the other:

Then, bring the free end of the underneath loop (here, on the left) up to its opposite end. Pull the underneath end through the free end.

You now have a knot! Pull slowly and gently until the knot won't give anymore. It should get surprisingly small.

This was about as far as this knot would go, but typically they can go smaller, provided the plastic is pulled firmly but gently. Tears in the plastic are bad. If it does tear, think of the Hitchhiker's Guide, and DON'T PANIC. You can do two things: undo the knot and throw away the torn piece, or say screw it and just tie the broken pieces back together and trim off the excess. However you approach problems. I'm more of an "Ah well. Tie it back together" type.

Once you're done, you should have this:

This was about ten bags worth and as you can see, once rolled, the ball was pretty much the size of my hand. This stuff is bulky but it works fast.

So that's it for today. If plarn seems like your kind of thing, I encourage you to try it. It's not a craft for super-perfectionists; you've just got to go with the flow.

I'll post a tutorial soon on how to work with it, but for now, have fun cutting!