Yellow Gristedes Plastic

I recently tried a different grocery store in the neighborhood, Gristedes. It's much older and smaller than the Morton Williams grocery store I usually go to, but it's also much less crowded and quieter and the staff is very friendly. It's a longer walk to get there, but it's worth it.









Another reason I really like Gristedes - they use the prettiest yellow and turquoise grocery bags! This is a preview of my next purse using the yellow Gristedes plastic...

White Bag with Pastel Ruffles

This is my latest crocheted bag. I made this one solid white, but added three ruffles around the opening in pink, blue, and green. The pastel plastic came from the newspaper bags for the Baytown Sun which my mom saves for me. I get the prettiest shades of pink, blue, and green from that newspaper!

New Purses and Bags

Here are some of my latest plarn bags...

Close Up Crochet

Here are some cool close up shots from my latest crocheted plastic...

Making Plarn

Yesterday I made another batch of plarn from a month's worth of plastic bags.


Here are the bags organized by color and stacked flat.




Two hours later the bags are cut...

And then later the following day the cut pieces are joined and rolled into balls of plarn.

Peppermint and Licorice Plarn Purse

I call this the Peppermint and Licorice purse because of the colors. Why do so many things remind me of candy and food?

This is the purse as of Saturday night, but I wasn't happy with how it looked.
Tuesday night I decided to experiment with weaving plarn through the crocheted portions which turned out to be the perfect solution. The four woven stripes continue all the way around the surface of the purse.

I finished it off with a tiny bow which I think is adorable!

Latest Plarn Purse

Here is my latest plarn purse which I finished Monday night. I LOVE this purse even more than the first plarn purse. I added a little bling by sewing a faceted crystal to the center of the flower.

How to Make Plarn

I had some requests to post the instructions on how to turn a plastic grocery sack into "plarn." I discovered this technique on one of my favorite blogs, Gooseflesh. Here are the instructions. My plarn creations do not even compare to those of this amazing artist. She is definately an inspiration to me! She crochets sea creatures and coral reefs from plarn (and traditional yarn) that are definately worth a peek.

Plarn Clutch Purse

Here is my latest crochet creation...a small clutch purse made from plarn (plastic grocery sack yarn). Now I don't like to brag, but I LOVE this purse! I plan on making many more like it, but I need more grocery sacks. These brown Kroger sacks were generously mailed to me from my friend Tracy in Houston. If any other friends or family members would like to support my creative habit by mailing saved grocery sacks to me, I will gladly take them! A big THANK YOU in advance!

Plastic Grocery Sack Bag

I finally finished my plastic grocery sack bag this week! I started this early last fall, but then moved on to other projects and never quite finished. While organizing my crochet basket the other day I came across it and decided it was time to finish. I love how it turned out and was inspired to try another. I'm going to crochet a bag similar in shape and size to this one, but using only produce bags which I have been saving for the last 6 months.

Crocheting with plastic bags

I started running low on yarn after I finished the granny chic scarf, so I started a new project using plastic grocery bags. I learned how to turn the plastic bags into "yarn" from Gooseflesh, one of my favorite blogs, and then borrowed the pattern from another online source.

I really like my bag, but it's a bit wider than the one in the pattern. I think I messed up somewhere along the way and worked in an extra stitch. But I decided to just go with it and let it take whatever form it may. This is still a work in progress and I'll post the pictures when it's finished.