Knit Revolution

Monday, August 25, 2008

Harder than it would seem...

Knitting with plastic bags is harder than it would seem. At least with my Denise interchangable knitting needles. I was tempted to dunk them in flour to see if the plastic would slide easier but wasn't in a place to get flour when I thought of it and it sounded awfully messy too.

I did get a nice little swatch done, however, on the bus as I was making my way from down town Seattle to Mill Creek and I realized that I wouldn't be able to use the guage that was recommended in the pattern I'm working on. Well at least because I don't like the way it looks.

So I bound off my stitches so I would have it as a sample, but so far the experiment of knitting with plastic bags has been great. I spent about two hours on Thursday night laying out all my bags and stacking them according to color. I had a lot more brown than I thought and quite a few clear ones. I'm eager to knit the clear ones to see how the spots of color look.

Over all I learned that plastic bags stretch as you knit and the plastic doesn't fill in the little knitted "V's" like fiber does. I guess this is kind of a "duh" but I really didn't know what to expect. I was surprised that not a single person leaned over on the bus and said, "Uh, what the heck are you doing?" as I have had many a stranger strike up unprompted conversations with me before. It was nice not to be interrupted though. I was just dissapointed I couldn't plug the Knit Revolution. I need to carry fliers around with me. Umm, speaking of fliers, I really need to get on that. I only said I would do that a month ago. Whoops!

Thursday, August 21, 2008

Bremen Town Musicians

Since I have fallen in love with the idea of Plabric I have commissioned myself (for a silent auction) to make a child size rain coat and the image on the back is going to be the Bremen Town Musicians from the Grimm's Fairy Tales. I always liked the story as a little kid. I think what must have appealed, now that I have had to go back and re-read the story again, was that this hapless bunch were all going to be put to death by their owners and they all decided to get together and sing. How nice; what a nice ending.
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So I have spent the last week working up a sketch of the Bremen Town Musicians so I have something to work from. Check out my artistic skills:

My goal was to start working on my plabric obsession this weekend but my husband has asked me to sew him up a new shirt for a renaissance type get together (SCA September Crown) that he will need for the week after next. Total sadness but I have been promised a make up weekend. Maybe I can play with my growing collection of bags on the weekday nights this upcoming week.

Anyway. I will keep you posted on how it goes. I have a lot of great ideas mulling around in my head on how to piece together logos, shapes, and colors of bags to get unique and very interesting designs when they all get melted together.

Ooooo and I have also found a great bag pattern I am going to start knitting with the plarn I have created so far. I'll also keep up to date images on that and will especially post pictures when I find the location it will need to be dropped off at.

I'm hoping to hear from some of you ogglers sometime soon. So far no one has emailed me; except I have gotten one comment which truly rocked my world because I still think this is a way cool idea, and I'm glad to have at least one supporter. I supposedly have had 107 people look at, and a bunch of people join, my map but no one is including pictures and it's defeating the purpose of the map. The purpose being that the map is supposed to show locations of where bags have been dropped off but no one is saying anything of the sort. I hope bags are being dropped off.

Anyway, I hope to hear from some of you creative peoples. Drop me a line some time! knitrevolution@gmail.com

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Shame, shame, but OOOoooooooo!!!!!

Shame on me for even looking but man when you get the plabric/ plarn itch it is so hard to stop scratching.
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My friend Erin sent me a link to a Plastic Bag website that has a ton of different color bags and for a screaming deal. I just like browsing and dreaming but to buy the bags would totally go against the green Knit Revolution. *Sigh* In case you would like to drool, too, over the fantasy of possibilities check out this link.

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Searching for Plabric On Google Turns Up This Site

I am so super excited to see my blog pop up on Google. Ok so it's the second page of the search for Plabric, which it seems not many people do so it didn't turn up a ton of pages but still; the site was there! Woo Hoo!!

Monday, August 11, 2008

Plabric - Oh my husband is going to kill me

I just read how to create fabric from plastic bags by fusing them with an iron, parchement paper, and scissors. Oh, I am so amazed with what we can do with all of our bags! And this seems a faster way to produce bags for the revolution then knitting or crochetting not that we would want to pass up on our favorite past time. Check out the link. There are fabulous possibilities.

Fusing Plastic Bags with the Etsy Labs

Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Plarn, Plarn, Plarn

I'm almost there! I have cut about 15 bags so far into one long continuous strip and I'm chomp'n at the bit to start knitting it. I'm just about done knitting up a sweater (non-plarn) for my son (oooooo plarn rain jacket?!) and then I am going to dive right into knitting something fabulous. I have a ton of yellow and red plastic bags from the Dollar Store near my house and so I think I will probably be producing a lot of yellow and red things. Oh well...those are happy colors aren't they?

Thursday, July 31, 2008

Internet Searches Produce Fabulous Ideas

I have been searching around the internet to see what others have done with their fabulous recycled art ideas and there are multitudes of fantastic creations! I even learned a new word to day "upcycled." Way cool. Check out their links and Etsy Stores if they have one!