New use for those plastic bags: PLARN!

It was early Saturday morning when my eldest son walked into the livingroom to find me sitting on the floor cutting plastic grocery bags into one-inch wide strips.

“What are you doing?” he asked.
“I’m making plarn,” I explained.
“Did you say… plarn?”

Yes, I had said plarn.
Plarn is plastic yarn: Yarn made by cutting plastic bags into strips and connecting them to create a material suitable for crocheting.

Never heard of it? No surprise. It does sound pretty far out.
But, I assure you, plenty of crafters are way ahead of me on this one. Google the word “plarn” and see how many results you get. You’ll find everything from instructions on how to cut the bags to ideas and patterns of what to make with it.

You know by now how obsessed I am with yarn and crocheting. So, is it really such a surprise that I just had to try this?

Still, I waited a good long time before diving into working with plarn.

First, I had to save up plastic bags. I always thought those things were multiplying in our house, but once I sorted them, I found I didn’t have as many as I imagined. You see, to make a solid colored project, I’d need to work with bags all from one store or stores that use similar colors on their bags. Surprisingly, not a lot of stores have like-colored bags.

Second, I had to decide on a project. Being a bit of a goofball, of course my first choice was to make a shopping bag. Hello? A plastic shopping bag made out of plastic shopping bags? I definitely needed to make something like that.

Third, I had to find a suitable pattern. That was tough. While I found a plethora of plarn bag patterns (say that three times fast), none of them was exactly what I wanted.
So…

Fourth, I had to create a pattern from scratch.

After several starts and stops and after pulling apart unsatisfactory attempts more than once or twice, I finally designed something I like a lot.

What do you think?

This one used about 30 Dollar General bags to make the main part plus a handful of WalMart bags for the handles and accent color. It is big enough to carry two one-gallon jugs of milk.

So…
Is it bordering on brilliance? Or, insanity?
You tell me.