Plastic Bag Workshop

Last night I taught a plastic bag workshop at my local library for their Clean and Green monthly series. It was a lot of fun. There were 6 adults and 3 children who attended. It was also video taped by the local access channel to be aired at a later date.

The first thing that I showed everyone how to make was plarn or plastic bag yarn. Here is a past blog post where I showed how to make plarn.

This is one of the bags that I have made from spun plarn and vhs tape. The pattern for this can be found here. However a simple pattern is just to knit or crochet a rectangle, add handles, and sew the sides closed. That makes a wonderful tote bag. What size needles and hooks do I use with plarn? Anywhere from a size I to a P crochet hook, and I mainly use a size US 15 knitting needles. You can go smaller or bigger with either one though. If you are having a hard time working with the plarn, try using a metal hook or needles and put a little lotion or soap on your hook or needles. Two other blogs that are a great source for plarn patterns is My Recycled Bags and Fat Bottom Bags. Also checkout Ravelry, an online knitting, crocheting, spinning, and weaving community. I am one of the moderators for the Trash to Treasure group which talks about using recycled materials in our crafting. The link for this group is on the right hand side of my blog.

Next I showed everyone how to make a plastic bag wreath. To learn how to make this and the plarn you can watch this you tube video. Also see what else you can make out of plarn in this video. Then learn how to use a Navajo spindle for spinning plarn in this video. You can also view the show notes to these 3 videos here. To see some of my blog posts on different wreaths, click here.

The third thing that I showed people how to make last night was fused plastic bags. I did a whole t.v. episode on how to make these. Here are the you tube video links for it: 4.1, 4.2, and 4.3. Here is a past blog post on how to fuse a Disney Store bag. Click here to see past blog posts on fused bags.

I hope that everyone who attended this workshop had a good time. I know that I did. I will be teaching a similar class this Saturday in Cape Cod. Instead of showing how to fuse plastic bags, I'm going to show how to make t-shirt yarn or tarn. This class will be at the Brooks Free Library at 739 Main St., Harwich, MA. from 1 - 2:30 pm.