Beyond Plarn

Any guess what this is?

About half the people who've seen it have known right off the bat: it's VHS tape.

I've been wanting a new lunch bag, so I started knitting with an old movie no one had ever watched (and never was going to watch!).

One old movie and a garbage bag lining plus some creative work yielded this result:

Now I'm thinking it's too nice for a lunch bag and may claim it as a purse. Decisions...decisions...

First step in making the purse was to take apart the cassette tape to get at the video tape.

Then I knit a large rectangle of mesh. Not having a pair of super-large needles, I just wrapped the tape around my needle twice while knitting each stitch. Then when I came back to knit them, I knit one loop and let the second one drop. This is an easy way to fake a large needle. (Stitch size is related only to loop size.)

It was also a way to make the tape slide over the needles a little easier. The tape stuck to the needles like crazy. It wasn't pleasant. And while I'm complaining I'll add that the tape was very noisy! Crinkling and squeaking. I couldn't knit while watching TV! Ha ha, but somehow I made it through:

Once it was knit, I slip stitched down each side with a crochet hook to make it the right shape. Project Stats
Started: 22 May '10
Finished: 09 Jun '10
Pattern: I made it up!
Materials: one reel VHS tape, one purple garbage bag, $0
It was very amusing at this stage because it would stretch every which way and not hold any particular shape.

The next question was what to line it with. I've been thinking quite a while about doing some plastic fusing and yesterday decided to try it out. My mother-in-law sent me a couple of big garbage bags that were a beautiful colour of purple. It would set off the black beautifully.

First step was to cut off the bottom and fold it into thirds.

This gave me six layers which I thought was a good thickness to try, and also gave me the right width for the pieces I would need for the purse.

To protect my iron, I laid the plastic between two layers of an old poster. (Parchment paper works too, but I didn't have any.)

And then ironed away. Not too hot, keep the iron moving. Flip it over and do it on the other side:

Eventually you have a sheet of fused plastic. My sheet did not come out as smooth as some I've seen in pictures. Apparently it depends on the plastic composition (which varies widely in plastic bags) but I was pretty content with how it came out.

The plastic shrank quite a bit. (No surprise.) It was no longer wide enough for my original measurements, but turned out to still be wide enough for what I needed. Nice when that works out!

So then I cut out the pieces that I needed. One large rectangle for the front, back and bottom (all in one), and two pieces for the sides. Sew it together, remembering to use your teflon foot because it won't stick to the plastic:

Then cut out narrow strips and sew them on for handles.

The plastic turned out to be perfect for folding into shape. I pressed two creases to shape the bottom, and pressed the seams so it formed a nice "box" with handles to fit into my VHS bag.

Slip it inside and finish by sewing around the top edge.

The finished bag has a great shape

and looks pretty sweet!

I can't wait for the next project that absolutely must have some fused plastic!

Re-Finishing My Embellished Bag

So back in May I wrote about this "fancy" plarn bag I made. I was pretty happy with the little tote, but not long after finishing it I took that field trip to Chicago and found some nice plastic hoop handles at Soutache.

The handles struck me as just the thing to elevate this little tote from "homemade" to "hand crafted" (if you know what I mean).

I've had the handles sitting around since then, moving them from pile to pile. When I realized last night that I had the whole evening to craft if I wanted, I thought of this project which had been waiting so patiently for so long and thought, "This is it. The time is now."

And so....
First thing: take out the old handles. I found the end and carefully picked out the final knots and raveled the top few rows of the bag. Yes, I could have cut. But--do I have to say it again?--I am a purist and would rather pull it all out and reuse the plarn.

And I did. I crocheted a new top to the bag, this time leaving room for the handles to nest in the final three rows.

(The pink yarn is marking the centre; it won't stay there.)

Setting the handle into place,
I threaded a long string of plarn onto a big needle,
and sewed the hoop into place.
After the hoop was sewn into place, I then did a backstitch along the edge of the hoop stitching. I'm not sure why, it just seemed the thing to do at the time. And I think it did give a more finished edge.

I can now give you the new Embellished Better Plastic Bag:
I see none of the greens match, but that makes it more charming, right?

Plarn Gets Fancy

You may recall that I made another plarn bag while teaching the class at Red Purl. I made the small size so that I wouldn't have quite as much work to do. (I'd hate to have the students waiting for me.) It turned out as a nice little purse size. Or a small project bag, if you prefer.

I then had some fun with the brightly coloured bags that I had been saving. I mean once they're gone, they're gone. But the time had come to break them out and cut them up.

I made three different styles of flowers with patterns I picked up from Ravelry. (Where else?) The first pattern was a two-tone designed by SkaMama that I did in white and dark green.

The second was a simpler two-tone number by Drops design. I used a lighter green with pink.

And the third was a very simple two-round crochet flower by Mimi Alelis' Crochet and Other Stuff.

I adlibbed the stems, first crocheting them and then finding it easier to do the chain stitch with a tapestry needle. I also improvised the leaves. I just sewed them down with a few stitchesProject Stats
Started: 16 Apr 09
Finished: 13 May 09
Pattern: my own
Materials: Walmart bags &
various other
Size: 11.5" x 11.5"
of plarn right down the middle.

I think the flowers helped the bag a lot but it's not the sort of thing I'll do all the time. A little too fussy for me. (I'll take 3 hours of straight knitting or even crochet over 1 hour of fiddly stuff any day.) But sometimes you just gotta do.

The plan is to give this to my cousin. I think I gaffed on her Christmas present last year, and hopefully this one will better represent the sincere affection I have for her.

How Did the Class Go?

Oh yes, thank you for asking...

The Better Plastic Bag class went well. I thought I was prepared with what I had to say. I had handouts. (Three of them.) I demonstrated how to prepare the plarn, discussed using different colours (stripes or spots), and got everyone started on her bag. By "everyone" I mean the one student. Yes, I had one student, but went ahead with the class anyway. (Why not?)

She was very excited to learn and did very well. I was very happy that she had some crochet experience. I could have shown her if I had had to, but it would have really slowed us down.

I got her started on the base of her bag so that she could work the next two weeks on the body of the bag. Then next class we can work on the handles, and hopefully even finish the bag that night.

I myself started another (smaller) plarn bag so that I could work on the same project along side her. It seemed a little silly to pull out a different project to work on while she was crocheting in my class. (And not working on anything at all seems so silly as to not even be considered!) I should have no trouble getting it done to the handles by next class.

I'm planning to embellish it. Something along the lines of the bag I talked about making in this post. That bag really wasn't getting anywhere, so I threw it into the frog pond. (Speaking of which, ripping out what I had done on that bag gave me a ball of plarn for the first time. Usually it works better to just add loops as you go, but there is no way I am wasting all the plarn that I had crocheted into that bag. So now I have quite lengthy bit of plarn so I can really go to town!)

Now, as to the embellishing, should I decorate with leaves or flowers?

One More Tote

I got my red bag done tonight. I just love it. As I've said before, the red looks so rich and deep. Very surprising effect coming from plastic bags, but it works.

My niece came through with the few more bags I needed to finish it up. I ran out on the very last row! So I was frustratingly stopped just as I thought I was finished. I got them in the mail last week I'm embarrassed to admit, but finally tonight took the time to finish the bag while watching a football game I'm not very interested in. (Some also call it the Superbowl.)

I considered a fancy scalloped trim on the top, but in the end decided nice and simple would do the trick. It's a little smaller than the other large totes I've done, and even smaller since the handles are "inside" the bag instead of sewn on the top, but it's nice to have a variety of sizes, right? This one is 12" x 4" and 13" tall.

All for now. I think I will cast on for a hat exchange going on at the Purl Friday the 13th. Everyone brings a hat, and Amy says "lady luck" will determine which hat you go home with. I'll give pictures after the exchange because I wouldn't want to give away any secrets before their time!

-christina