Saturday, March 11, 2006

Take one down, stitch it around, 120 plastic bags on the wall..


Melissa’s recent post on her LA Green Living blog about the # of plastic bags in her closet (43) reminded me of the scary, mounting pile I have in my own.

I’ve been saving them since I moved to L.A. last December (’04) with the intention of knitting them into a cool tote - one of those back burner projects. Maybe its time, given I have 140 of them...Majority of them in photo above. Spring cleaning?

Tried this once in Santa Cruz, went through laborious collecting, sorting, cutting, making into yarn process, got a ways in, and...it was awful - I'm not much of a knitter, so working w/ plastic yarn was tough. The result: super awkward shape, just off. So I abandoned the project.

Time to try again, and this time get some tips, maybe from someone with knitting skills. How cute is that knit cell phone case?

3 comments:

Admin said...

That would be a wonderful project...knitting with plastic bags, that'd be awesome. I'd like to get one when you'll be done with a bag maybe ;-) I know who loves knitting...in your area, GreenLAGirl! :-D Let me count my plastic bags...

Admin said...

Anna, I did my part and counted how many plastic bags I have at home: 120 plus 10 paperback shopping bags! What would I do with them? Maybe once you're back again with your knitting project...I'll learn from you how to turn these plastics into a cute tote bag :-) Take a look at my post today...thursday. Thanks for your idea...

Anonymous said...

Some plastic bags are easier to knit with than others. I discovered that while knitting my fake plastic fish.

The thicker, "stickier" bags are harder because they don't slide off the needles as easily. The thinner bags like you get at Safeway and other grocery stores are easier.

But thankfully, Safeway in Oakland, CA will not be giving out plastic bags anymore. We banned them just like SF! Woo hoo!

Next step: those ubiquitous produce bags.