Creative upcycling is fun. What is even more interesting (to me), is finding out that other people have independently come up with crazy ideas that I have 🙂 And the best part? Being able to Google random ideas and find instructions, lessons learned, and tips and tricks for almost anything you can think of.
I love the internet. 🙂
The other month or so, I thought, “surely, people knit using old plastic grocery bags. Cut ’em in strips, and they’re knitable…”…
At the time, I figured I’d find one or two kooky rogue bloggers and design students who have given it a whirl.
I was wrong.
Knitting with plastic bags is a whole ‘thing’ 🙂 Love it.
[Do a quick search on Google for “knitting plastic bags”… 🙂 ]
It wasn’t long before I found a site (Pie and Coffee) with a handy, easy to follow, basic tutorial on how to get the most material out of one bag.
After a few tries and experiments with different gauge knitting needles, I got the hang of it.
So now what?
Make a market bag for a friend, of course 😉 (Ugly? Yes. Imperfect? Hell yes. Unexpected birthday gift? Of course. Sweet? I think so! )
The front/bottom/back are one knitted rectangle with varying plastic types for each section. The bottom/middle of the rectangle is composed of thicker, less stretchy plastics (for more durability) while the mid-section of the front and back are from regular grocery sacks. The top sections are of a mid-thickness plastic. All strips are about an inch wide, knit with 8 gauge needles.
The side panels are regular grocery sacks cut into two-inch strips, knit with 17 gauge needles (so they can stretch to make more room if the bag is full, but the thicker strips have enough strength to compensate…I hope!).
The handles are a simple braid of three strands done in a loop to provide a bit of extra support to the bag. The bags here were cut in half to make very thick, strong pieces.
The components were sewn together with an embroidery needle and some sturdy thread, using double-triple stitches, widely spaced.
This is why I don’t do tutorials. Description ain’t my forte. (For bad-ass tutorials that you can really use if you want to learn how to sew, etc., go to Ikat Bag. LiEr rocks. Hard.)
My baby franken-bag? Here ’tis:
Gradissima 