Plarn? Now that's just plain brilliant!

I found this neat new website today called Craftster.Org. (I seem to have been the last crafter alive to have found this place, but that doesn't make it any less cool.) Anyway, there's a picture of a laundry basket that a crafter made out of something called "plarn", which I had never heard of. It is, apparently, a type of plastic yarn made out of recycled plastic grocery bags. You know the ones I'm talking about.

Being the resourceful Googler that I am, I immediately wanted to find a simple tutorial on how to make the stuff so that I could make my own laundry basket. And ta-da! I found one!

This is from myrecycledbags.com, and it makes the process simple and easy. You'll be creating your own plarn in no time.

Plarn How-To

• Cutting

Lay recycled bag out flat

Fold in half lengthwise then fold in half again

Cut off top handles

Cut bag in strips about 1 inch wide or as desired

Set aside the end of bag where bottom edge was glued. The ends and the handles can be recycled either as stuffing for other projects, packing material for shipping, or taken to your local recycling bin for plastic bags.

• Tying strips together

Take two strips and inter-twine together as shown

Gently pull on ends to knot two strips together

Connect next strip to last strip in the same manner

Continue connecting strips until you have a large ball of plastic “yarn”

Tips:

Pull ends evenly to create a smooth and flat strip.

If you find your strip doesn’t lie flat between knots, you didn’t pull evenly which creates a bunched strip. Just make sure your strip is even before you pull your knot tight between the two connected strips. To fix a bunched strip, just loosen your knot between the strips then pull on the ends again to make your strip flat and smooth.

Here's the link, with pictures for the tutorial. Very helpful.

http://www.myrecycledbags.com/2007/02/17/instructions-for-cutting-plastic-bags-creating-recycled-plastic-yarn/

Here's a picture of the laundry bag:

Special thanks to ToadallyDee from craftster.org.

 There aren't any instructions, so I'm just going to play around until I get something that works reasonably well. In the meantime, I think I'm going to set my 13-year-old daughter to making the plarn for me from our piles and piles of bags to combat her recurring bouts of boredom. I'll let you know how it goes.