Terrarium fever and yarn

I love terrariums but this is silly. The world of knitting and crochet is a bizarre one. Just having lots of yarn and lots of time isn't a justification for making some of the stuff they have patterns for. Pick up any knitting magazine and you see at least 5 car wrecks of yarn-tastic horror. There are more pictures on Why Would You Knit That? a super cool site that lives up to its name.

Plarn=plastic yarn

What to do with all those pesky plastic bags! It seems that no matter how much you try to avoid them sooner or later you've got some. Most grocery stores have bins where you can recycle them, however it you're crafty like me you can make stuff with them. I've been making market bags. I totally suck at crochet but that seems to be a bit faster and less stretchy than knitted plarn.

I take the bags flatten them out then fold them and cut the handles and bottom. That leaves a tube that I cut up into loops. The loops are then looped on each other to make one continuous string of plastic yarn or "plarn." Sure it's time consuming but what I have will last me a long time and stay out of the land fill. It takes a lot of bags to make one market bag so I feel good about it and I use up my friend's and family's bags. Making the plarn is my television watching activity or should I say "television listening" activity since my eyes are on my hands.

Maybe I'll get better at crochet and make something more interesting. Some people use old vhs tape to make these shiny, crinkly purses and stuff. I even save and wash the plastic bags from frozen veggies and fruits, as well as the bags that toilet paper is packaged in. Almost anything that can be cut into a tube or loops I try to reuse because I can get a lot of color that way. The plain white bags get a little dull looking and who doesn't like a little color?

The most colorful one is still in progress. I'm knitting some handles out of acrylic yarn to be a little easy on the hands. I'll post a picture once I'm done with it. By the way I keep working on the bath mat of doom but it's still slow going.