Plarn (plastic yarn) tote bag pattern

April 9, 2:02 PMBaltimore Knitting ExaminerHolli Friedland

Previous Next

Comment Print Email RSS Subscribe

Subscribe

Get alerts when there is a new article from the Baltimore Knitting Examiner. Read Examiner.com's terms of use.

Email Address   Include other special offers from Examiner.com Terms of Use

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.