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My plastic tote bag design.
I had a great time designing this pattern for a tote bag made from plarn (plastic used as yarn). It’s made from plastic grocery bags. See my article on cutting plastic bags to make plarn.
I made my first tote bag using random bags. It turned out nicely, but the second bag I only used blue bags and I think it looked a lot prettier. You can use blue bags and then do a few stripes with white bags. You can be as creative as you like, depending on what bags you get. I have friends saving bags for me so I have quite an assortment.
The first plarn project I did had way too many seams for my liking. I enjoy the knitting, not the sewing.
I created a seamless pattern. Using size 10 1/2 (US) straight needles and a 24" 10 1/2 round needle.
Abbreviations:
SKP (slip one stitch, knit one stitch, pass the slipped stitch over the knit one)
K (knit)
P (purl)
Base of the bag:
Cast on 8 stitches.
Row 1: Sl 1, K6, P1
Row 2: Sl 1, K1, Inc. 1, K to last stitch, P1
Repeat Row 2 until you have 20 stitches.
Next Row: Sl 1, K to last stitch, P1.
Continue until piece is 10” from start.
Decrease row: Sl 1, K to last 3 stitches, SKP, P.
Repeat decrease row until 8 stitches remain.
Bind off loosely.
Body of the bag:
Pick up and K 88 sts. around edge of base.
Increase 10 sts. evenly in each of the next 2 rows.
108 stitches.
Bind off 10, K8, bind off 17, K8, bind off remaining stitches.
Handles:
Use two separate balls of plarn and knit both handles at the same time.
Knit is stockinette stitch (K row, P row) starting with Purl on wrong side.
Continue until handles are desired length. I made mine 20”.
Attach handle to body of tote bag. You can sew them with fishing line. I used a crochet hook and wove the plarn to attach it to the body of the tote bag. You could also use a thick plastic needle and use the plarn to sew the handle to the bag.
Please send me photos of your plarn bags! I want to make a slide show of them here. You can send your photo to holli@reptileinfo.com.
Comments
Where can I find those blue plastic bags? I love the color! Right now I use only fred meyer bags. I NEED the blue ones!
I think you left out a line between picking up the 108 stitches and the binding off and handle prep like how to do body of bag even if only knit a number of rows.
You never told when to use stright needles or circular needles. Sounds like a great ideal, but seem as some of the instructions are missing. Can you email me all of the insturctions peggy.magaw@gmail.com
I like not having to sew together as I have never been able to neatly sew anything together. HELP!!!!
Where does it tell us how to cut the plastic????? Is it 2, 3, or 4 inches wide// how does it all stay together??? For newcomers -- what is a plarn?? Could one make a retangle for the base??
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