The Practical Practice of Plarn

What's plarn?  "Plarn" is a jammed-together term meaning "plastic yarn" whereby you make "yarn" from cutting up plastic bags--shopping bags, bread sacks, newspaper wraps, some balloons, packaging, whatever has the right consistency to allow one to use the plastic as a yarn or thread.

Why would I want to make plarn?  For one thing, it's pretty much a free resource.  Plastic bags are all over the place.  Even if you don't happen to have any, someone nearby is likely to be overflowing with the things.  And of course it is a very "green" ecological thing to do, to reuse plastic.  It also has its advantages merely by being plastic; waterproof, light, cheap...

Plastic bags

What do I do with plarn after I make a bunch of it?  Here is where the creativity comes to play.  Basically whatever you can do with yarn, you can do with the right kind of plarn.  Crochet, knit, weave, macramé, etc.  Google "plarn" and you'll find a whole world of ideas.

So how do I start?  First, naturally, you gather up (clean) plastic sacks (etc.) and cut them into strips.  Some people slip the strips together (here is someone's example) so the strips will become one continuous strand. 

AllFreeCrochet's instructions on making plarn strips

I personally take the item and cut it into one immensely long strip, round and round, as if peeling an apple continuously.  Longer strips are easier to deal with than short ones, but if you are crocheting, you probably don't need to slip or knot the strips together.  The size (width) of the strips depend on what your source is, what you are crocheting/knitting/etc. with or what you are ultimately doing.  Generally somewhere between 1/4" and an inch is a good size, you just want to make sure it is fairly flexible and not too thin (breakable) or thick (hard to work with).  Roll as you go, or you'll be the meatball in an enormous wad of plastic spaghetti.

Balls of wrapped plarn

Anyway, there are all sorts of fantastical things you can make, especially if you sort your colors as you go (like above). 

Here are a few things I've put together:

Plarn dinosaur, granny square and teddy bear

 A bit of standard crochet (granny square), a dinosaur (I always think it's extra funny to make a dinosaur out of a petroleum product) and a fluffy teddy bear (I wanted to see if I could fill the holes with a bit of rug-hooking).

Plarn granny square

Here's the granny square up close.  You can use up a lot of different colors with these things.

If you keep going, you can have a blanket before you know it.  I made one to use as a mattress waterproofer for a while.  (now it's doing time as a pet house accessory)  Does take some time to get something that large made, but hey, it's free and no big deal to toss when necessary.  They can also be (hand) washed up to a point, being plastic (but you don't want to toss them into a washer with piping hot water...!).

Big plarn blanket

There is at least one group who meets to make plarn and crochet bed pads (easy to roll up and carry, making a warmer insulation layer between a person and the ground) for homeless folks.  It can be a very helpful substance...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7KpQZJWPfE

Plarn Bedrolls

 And here's my silly stegosaurus.  Little toys are fun to make.

Plarn dinosaur

              Plarn dino looking the other way

Plarn on plaid, stegosaurus

Plarn on plaid stegosaurus sitting the other direction

The teddy bear started out a different way, but I got curious about how plarn might work as a rug-type material.  So after I crocheted the bear shape, I took little scraps of plarn (3-4" each) and hooked them all over the beastie, then gave him a haircut to make it look neat and fluffy.

Plarn teddy bear (even the eyes and nose)

Plarn bear (yellow collar and mylar back)

 I used not only regular shopping bags, but lots of newspaper sacks and some dead-deflated mylar balloons (metallic-sparkly!).

 Anyway, if you find yourself fascinated, maybe we can do something with it at the library...and if not, it's still a useful tool to stick in one's idea-box.

Some plastics won't work too well for this...many are very biodegradable so don't last long while others are too thick to bend well.  On the other hand many will last for ages and are washable, so you just need to experiment.  Which is half the fun... Standard shopping bags, bread bags and newspaper bags are definitely suited for this sort of activity!

Fluffy plarn teddy