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!

Drifblim - The first pattern I ever wrote - Pt. I

Holland here :)

Amigurumi is just about the only thing I knit, and this is mostly an amigurumi blog since Jazmin is the same way.  The subset of amigurumi that I love the most is the pokemon plushies.  Most pokemon patterns are written for crocheting, and there was no pattern for Drifblim, one of my newer favorites.  I had to do it, I had to take the plunge.  After eight years of following other people's patterns to a T I had to dive in and make a pattern myself.

First, I spent a lot of time looking at photos of Drifblim.  Here he is:

 

I gazed for hours at his spherical but not quite spherical shape.  I thought about proportions and color placement.  His butt crown was especially intriguing.

 

I knew that I wanted the body made in segments, and that there would have to be 8 of them, 4 legs with a segment in between each.  I decided how big around I wanted him, sketched out 8 segments on paper, and taped them together.  It looked okay.

 

Much graphing and sketching and re-sketching commenced.  I understood gauge for the first time.

 

I consulted patterns of flippered animals to figure out how I wanted his legs to go.  His cloud was the only thing I didn't know how to deal with.

 

Here are some photos of Drifblim I.  He only has 1 leg because I know I'll have to fix him.  I plan on putting this original pattern up for free because it needs editing in several places.

 

Here is the full Knitblim (minus 3 arms):



 



The face came out okay, but I'm contemplating making the mouth out of felt, or else embroidering it with something thinner.  Felt appliques are totally Jazmin's department, not mine... Look how cute his evil little eyes are!

 



The color change on the body is one of the biggest things to bug me.  It needs to be moved down a few rows, and not have an increase row in it.  That little stitch of light purple drives me nuts.

 

Lets talk about the cloud.  It's cute, but it's not quite big enough.  I like the shape though.  Also, I might make a pattern for that ice cream cone pokemon based on it.

 

The butt crown was probably my favorite part, but it does need to be longer to cover the butt nub better.



 

And the flippers/legs/arms.  They do need to be longer.  I really like how the color change came out though.  Notice that they're stockinette stich on both sides (they were knit in the round) but that they toes are knit flat.  The awkward corner that that leaves needs to be tweaked just a bit.

 

 

So yeah!  That's Drifblim.  Here is the pattern pdf, free, with all of its flaws:

Drifblim UnEdited


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Our: This blog is run by three young women, we all know each other in real life, and we all have a weird love for yarn and yarn craft and David Bowie.
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