Crocheting with plastic bags

I'm happy to find that I can still use my sewing machine, even a few weeks after hip replacement surgery. My Bernina Aurora has a push button feature, so I can free motion machine quilt without touching the foot pedal. Woohoo!

One silly project I've been doing in my free time is crocheting with plastic bags. I saw it done in Craft magazine and on television, I forget where. Here's how you do it: take a plastic bag and roll it up, jelly roll style, with the top and bottom of the bags on either ends of the roll. (See first photo) Then cut one-inch slices, as shown.

Each slice is a loop of plastic. Slip knot them together, forming a long string of loops. (Refer to second photo) When you are done slip knotting all the loops, roll it into a ball, like a ball of yarn.

Now you can crochet with it, like yarn. Use a large crochet hook - I'm using a size H crochet hook, which was the largest that I had on hand, and I stuck to the single crochet stitch, for sturdiness. You can make purses, baskets.... use your imagination. Experiment and have fun!

When you come to the end of your string of loops, simply cut up more plastic bags and slip knot them to the last loop. You can crochet for a while, then make more "yarn," then crochet some more. You only have to make as much "yarn" as you need.

Some plastic bags work better than others. I found that the thinner, cheaper bags worked the best. You can use thicker plastic bags, but they will be harder to work with. Cutting the loops less wide might help.

When I started working with the plastic bag "yarn," I used a random bunch of different plastic bags, one after another. I found that the crocheted shapes warped and distorted more when I did this. There is less warping when you use similar kinds of plastic bags. Here is a little basket I made entirely from the little red and white bags one of my newspapers comes in. Soooo pepperminty!