Plarn Bag

My friend Danielle and I have been saving our plastic bags for quite a while. We kept talking about making "plarn"-plastic bag yarn- for a couple months. 

Well, we finally got around to it! 

It isn't difficult at all, but we were tired of doing it by the time we were about 10 minutes in. At least I was. 

You fold the bags, cut the bottom and handles off, and cut them into strips. 

Then you loop the strips together and ball it up. That's how you get plarn! (There are lots of great tutorials online, so I don't feel like I need to really do step-by-step pictures.)

That big ball of plarn is about the size of a volleyball. 

^The penny is for reference. I wish I had realized I cut part of the big ball out of the picture before Danielle took it home. The little balls of plarn are mine. I wanted to keep my colors separate, but now I have these slippery little balls of plastic that won't stay rolled up.

Danielle and I had a great time chatting while making the yarn, but we were both questioning our sanity for wanting to make plarn.

I kept telling myself that I was doing good and reusing something that was otherwise going to be thrown out (but we used those plastic bag recycle bins, so is reusing better than recycling?) but I just wanted to throw the plarn out!

It really is annoying, you know.

I decided to crochet a market bag with my plarn. Using a P hook, I chained 17 and single crocheted around both sides of the chain and continued working in the round in half-double crochet.

It looks kinda wonky here...

...but it evened out after a few rounds. 

I switched to the light grey plarn just after the above picture, and I'm going to use the dark grey plarn at the end for a kind of ombre effect. (FO picture will follow when I finish!)

I think I'll need to reinforce the bottom of the plarn bag with some slip stitches or maybe a layer of single crochet since I do plan on actually using this bag made of grocery store bags at the grocery store. I just have to remember to take it inside with my other reusable bags and take enough bags that they don't overload the bags that I bring.

I haven't quite decided how I feel about plarn yet. It isn't too difficult to work with-I've worked with some yarns that were 10 times worse. I think I'm still giving it the side-eye for being so annoying to make.

At least Danielle and I had some time to girl talk while we made plarn! (I swear, though, those plastic bags were popping out babies as we sat there...)