Originally posted:
10th September 2010It's been several months since I started finding different ways of helping not just the country but the environment as well. Even in my own little way, I wanted to be useful to my country and help in ways I can. As we all know, plastic bags when disposed of improperly can create not just unsightly litter, cause pollution, use up most of the Earth's precious resources, but most of all harm wildlife and human as they are non-biodegradable. Since I see a lot of plastic bags at home being thrown away, I felt the need to come up with something good to do with it. This way, I can collect them and put them to better use rather than having them thrown away without being sure if the plastics are even disposed of properly once it leaves the house, at least until I figure out where to give all the plastics I'll be able to collect.
And so today, when I had the chance to pick up my hook, I decided to try crocheting using a plastic bag!
For my first project I tried to make one medium size flower (I didn't follow any pattern for the flower, I just made it up as I crochet along) with the following things in mind:
- I wanted to find out how it feels like to crochet using a plastic bag as a thread.
- How sturdy the object is going to be after it has been finished.
- How it'll look like - - if it's going to be messy, etc.
Here are the step by step photos I did while trying to figure out how I can turn the plastic bag into a thread, just in case some of you might want to try it out *wink*.
For the materials, I used a plastic bag from one of our local grocery stores and a pair of scissors.
I folded it until it looked like this:
And then I started to cut it like this:
When you open it, this is how it will look like:
And then I connected all the strips to create my plastic 'thread' ☺
And once you have connected everything, you can start crocheting...!
So to answer the questions I have in my mind before I started working on the crocheted flower made of plastic, here are the things I found out:
1. Feel - it was REALLY tough at first. I find it very challenging because the plastic strips don't run through my fingers/hand the same way any thread or yarn would, add to that the bulk part created by the connected ends of the plastic strips.
2. Sturdy - for this part I'd say that any project made of plastic strips would really last long because the finished object is strong. ☺
3. Look - too bad I wasn't really able to finish the flower because I ran out of plastic thread. But without further a due, here's a picture of the finish project...
All in all I think plastic made as crochet threads would be good for any purse or embellishment projects. All you have to do is to bring out the creative side of you. *wink*
