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Tag: plarn

Being Creative Finding Colorful Plastic for Plarn

Cindy4 Comments

People frequently ask me where I find all the different colored bags for recycled bag projects. I admit it is harder to find pretty colors of plastic bags to turn into yarn or plarn as it is referred to now. Plarn is the plastic yarn made by cutting recycled plastic into strips. One tip I want to share today is that you must be creative finding colorful plastic to recycle into plarn.

One such example is this large red plastic bag that hash browns are sold in.

It is mostly a nice bright red color and can be cut into a thin strip to make plarn. Because this plastic is very thick, I cut it in one long continuous strip about 1/2 inch wide.

Making Plarn from a Plastic Tablecloth

Cindy8 Comments

I received a nice email from Anne asking about making plarn (plastic bag yarn) from some old tablecloths she had. She asked “Have you ever used any of the fairly inexpensive plastic banquet length table covers to make plarn?” And if so how do you do it? Well I replied to Anne at the email she left but it came back undeliverable so I thought I’d take this opportunity and respond in a post explaining the process.

Yes you can recycled those inexpensive plastic tablecloths into plarn. If the plastic is very thin, I would cut them about 1 to 1-1/2 inches wide depending on the thickness of plarn you desire. You want to cut the plastic in one long continuous strand as I did when I recycled some large plastic wedding gift bags.

The wedding gift bag plastic was very heavy so I cut it thinner but use your judgement depending on what you what to do with your recycled plastic yarn. I made a simple diagram below to show how you start cutting and just go around and around the plastic tablecloth to create one long strand. Should the plastic strand break, just tie a knot to join two strands. Roll the knot between your thumb and finger

Over a Hundred Free Plarn Patterns

Cindy2 Comments

If you are looking for free plarn patterns or craft ideas for using recycled plastic bags, you are at the right website. I have over a hundred free plarn patterns at My Recycled Bags.com. When I started this blog site back in 2007, I had just one crochet pattern for using recycled plastic bags made into plarn. Over the last 7 years I have created and added over a hundred new plarn patterns which I offer free to everyone for their personal use.

In case you are new to recycled crafting, plarn is the term which refers to the material one can make by cutting plastic bags into strips. Thus the term is PL (plastic) + ARN (yarn) = PLARN.

I want to provide everyone with a comprehensive post here and provide everyone links on how to make plarn to all the different designs I have available in my pattern links.

First if you want to know how to make plarn from regular plastic retail bags, here is my picture tutorial on how to make plarn. Maybe you have the thin newspaper bags and wonder how to make plarn from those. Here is my newspaper bag plarn making tutorial.

Finally here is the link to all my free plarn patterns. I have everything from purses, totes, draft dodgers, baskets, scrubbies, slippers, rugs, clothes pin bags to hats.

Reusable Water Bottle and Holder

Cindy7 Comments

Here is a new twist on a recycled plastic water bottle holder. I crocheted this water bottle holder using recycled plastic newspaper bags. I cut the plastic bags into 1 inch wide strips using this plarn making tutorial. Here is the free crochet pattern for the plastic bag water bottle holder. But the twist on this water bottle combo is the water container. I inserted a glass Mason jar into the plarn holder to hold the water.

This idea can be used for several different sizes of reusable and recycled glass jars as the plarn holder stretches and fits many sizes of jars and recycled glass bottles. The good thing about using glass is that you don’t need to worry about the plastic breaking down and you actually beginning to ingest the plastic if you reuse the bottle. Here is a recycled pint size jar in the same plastic bag holder as above.

Striped Reusable Tote Bag

Cindy5 Comments

I just finished crocheting this striped reusable tote bag. Each year I crochet a recycled bag item for my local Relay for Life event. They use the donated items in gift baskets and for their fundraising.


I used my ultimate recycled grocery tote pattern to crochet this bag. I just added three rows with pink recycled plastic bags or plarn, one row with blue, and then three final rows in pink again before switching back to white plarn. Finding the colored plastic bags isn’t easy and just a few can spice up a plain white tote bag such as this one. Plus I always like to use pink in my projects that I crochet for Relay for Life in support of breast cancer awareness.

This crocheted recycled tote bag measures