Crocheted bag from grocery bags - part 1

I found a really sweet crocheted bag while surfing the net, on this website.  I love it's shape, but something just didn't quite do it for me, but I bookmarked it.  You just never know when inspiration will strike.

 Then I found a really cool crocheted bag, made from recycled grocery bags on etsy, but I didnt' care for it's handles - plus I didn't want to buy one, I wanted to make one. 

I was working on Christmas gifts, and inspiration struck me one day as I was gathering up all of my plastic grocery bags to take them to the recycling center.  Note: in Podunk, they don't pick up any recycling curbside, you must take it to them.  Inconvenient.

Back to the inspiration... I decided to take the best of both worlds and see what happened.  Since the recycled bag didn't come with any instructions (they wanted to sell it, not give me instructions) I had to make some guesses.  Turns out, I guess pretty well!

I am going to make this post from here into 2 parts.  This part is the prep, and the second part will be the actual creation part.  If you feel the need to jump ahead, the website where I found the first bag has complete bag instructions. 

First, you will need to gather approximately 50 plastic grocery bags.  They need to be clean, so either wash the ones with the "stuff" stuck to the insides, or sort them until you have about 50.  I chose to only use one variety of bag, the one from our local grocery store.  I like the colors.  You can mix and match if you like.

Once you have your grocery bags, you need to cut them up.  For me this is the hardest part - not because it's actually hard, but because it takes a long time, and I am not a patient person.  I am using a cutting mat with a rotary cutter.  This is not essential, but it certainly makes it easier!

I found that I can cut about 5 bags at a time with the rotary cutter, so I lay them out flat, and then fold them once and line up on my cutting mat and trim off the bottom.



Then cut the rest of the bag, up to the handle portion into about 1" width strips.

Discard the handles and trimmed bottom.  Add them to your recycling. 

Put all the strips in a bag or a box, or in some way contain them.  You are going to have a bunch, so you will want containment!  Mine tended to have static cling, so I just threw a dryer sheet in with them and shook the bag a little.

Once you have them all cut, you need to string them together to make you "ball of yarn" that you will crochet with. This takes a while too... hang in there, the fun is just around the corner.

 First open up one loop.

Then take a second loop and make a slip knot with it through the first loop.

And pull until snug... not too tight or you will break one of the loops, but you also want your knot to be small, or that will cause you challenges when you start to crochet.

Continue looping together until all your strips are one LONG string.  You will want to either roll it into a ball or have some sort of containment.  Daughter #1 uses a paper grocery bag, but you can use whatever you have handy.



 Once you get finished, kick back and relax.  The hard part is done.  See you again in Part 2.

Pinterest

Is anyone else addicted to Pinterest?  I know you're out there... I suspect there are many of us! I hope.  PLEASE let there be someone else. PLEASE.  

I would like to say that I am taking part in the 12 step program to kick this addiction, but I'm not.  I like this addiction, and I don't WANT to kick it.  In the interest of full disclosure, I do think that recognizing you have an addiction is the first step.

Here's what I've made... so far!

I have made sugar hand scrub before.  I found my first recipe here, on the Chickens in the Road blog (one of my very favorites).  But then on Pinterest, there were so many scents and combinations I had never thought of before.  Perhaps for good reason.  I "created" the peppermint sugar scrub picture all by myself.  BAD idea.  It smells amazing.  It looks amazing.  This problem is after sitting for a week to give for Christmas presents, the stuff turned into a solid chunk, and I had to throw it out.  I will stick to the tried and true recipes.  The ones I eventually used are here, but they are really everywhere.

The girls were needing Christmas presents for the FFA gift exchange, and these redneck wine glasses were so cute, but in the store they are like $14.99!  No way, but on Pinterest, I spent $2.00 per glass plus the candy and eventual ribbon that was added.  Everyone that didn't get one was jealous.

We always try to make a special Christmas present for the couple that got us started in cows.  This year we made custom coasters and glasses etched with their farm name.  The calf on the coaster is the first calf we bought from them.  We did 6 coasters with 6 pictures of their different cow.  I didn't get a picture of the glasses, but I also did some glass etching for me.

I borrowed a friend's cricut to cut the "B" out of vinyl.  It worked amazingly!  I made a ton of glass etched Christmas presents, and so did daughter #1.  Now I want a cricut!



These lovely little things are crocheted braclets.  I made one for all the girls for stocking stuffers.  The Pinterest link went to an Etsy shop, and they wanted $28.00 for one.  I just used my smallest crochet hook (which ironically I realized later was label "Loreal" lol) and chained a bunch of stitches (I just wrapped it around my wrist to determine how long) and then single crocheted two rows, added a button, and walla, stocking stuffer.

I made two of these for my sister in law for Christmas, only I never gave them to her!  She got sugar scrub instead!  (Sorry Sally!)  They just look so cute on my dining room table, and smell good too.  The little square glass voltive came from the Dollar Tree ($1.00 each) and then I got whole coffee beans from Dollar General, and I already had the tea lights.  I do intend to glass etch some for Sally as a gift later... really.

And last, but certainly not least is my spin on this adorable crocheted bag, instructions are found somewhere on the internet, but I've lost the link.  If anyone knows where this came from, I would be happy to link the instructions.  But I made a spin on the original instuctions by making this bag 100% out of recycled plastic grocery bags.  I will be posting the complete instructions later, but if you want to make one, start saving your plastic grocery bags now.  It takes about 50 bags!

I have so much stuff pinned.  I can't wait to share it all with you.  What are you pinning?