WIP Wednesday: Neckwarmer

Once again, it's Work-In-Progress Wednesday. Today I'm finishing up the prototype for a new pattern design I'm working on. It's a men's version of Witch Warmers, and it includes legwarmers, armwarmers, and a neckwarmer. My WIP for today is the neckwarmer, which is very close to being finished. Since I have already done the prototypes for the arm and legwarmers, the pattern should be ready for testing in a week or two.

If you'd like to be a tester for this new pattern, just let me know!

For more WIP Wednesday blog posts, check here.

WIP Wednesday: Plarn Market Bag

Got a new thing I'm participating in: Work-In-Progress Wednesday. So here's the project I'm working on today. I'm making a second plarn market bag for my local grocery store manager, so she can send the one she already has to the corporate office of the chain. I hope this gets talked about and maybe encouraged by the company. I'm using The Ultimate Recycled Market Bag pattern. It's available as a free download, if you want to try it out.

Here are some tips for working with plarn:
How to Make Plarn
Saving Your Hands & Arms When Using Plarn

This post is part of Work-In-Progress Wednesday, and you can find more links to WIP-Wed participants' blogs here.

T-Shirt Yarn Market Bag

Here's another way to crochet a bag out of recycled yarn-type stuff. This is The Ultimate Recycled Market Bag pattern, made with 1/2" (1 cm) wide strips of cut-up t-shirt fabric. I hand-stitch the ends of the strips together to form a continuous ball of tarn (T-shirt yARN). The only modification necessary for the pattern, is to use a US size P (15 mm) crochet hook.

It works up as a heavy, sturdy bag.



You can find more crochet tips and variations for The Ultimate Recycled Market Bag in the following posts:
How to Make Tarn
How to Make Plarn
Saving Your Hands and Arms When Using Plarn
Cotton Yarn Market Bag
My Old Crochet Hook

How to Make Plarn

Here's how I like to make plarn (PLastic yARN) for The Ultimate Recycled Market Bag pattern. It works great for me, and the 1/2" (1 cm) width makes it fairly easy on the hands and arms when working it up. This is double-stranded plarn, produced by joining loops cut from plastic bags.



1. The easiest type of plastic bag to work with is the kind you get at the grocery store. It’s not very stretchy, and it’s fairly thin. Don’t use produce bags--they’re too thin.* And be sure your bags are not biodegradable.



2. Smooth the bag out flat. Fold it vertically 3 times, smoothing flat each time, until you’ve got it about 1” (2.5 cm) wide.



3. With scissors, snip off the bottom seam and the handle section at the top. Save as packing material, or recycle.



4. Starting at one end of your folded bag, snip off 1/2” (1 cm) sections. When unfolded, each will be a loop.


5. Connect the loops the way you would connect rubber bands:

a. Lay out two loops with the left loop overlapping the right one.

b. With your left hand, reach through the left loop, come up under the right loop, and grasp the overlapping right end of the left loop.

c. Then pull it back the way you came: down through the right loop and back up through the left loop, until tight--with plarn, don’t pull too tight or the loops will break.



6. Keep adding loops on the left, using the last-connected loop on the right, making sure the two sides of each loop are even. You can hold the last-made knot in your right hand to help with this.

7. Roll the connected loops into a ball, and you have plarn!

* Note: produce bags are too thin for plarn unless you use 2 loops together when you connect them.

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You can find more tips and variations for The Ultimate Recycled Market Bag pattern in the following posts:
Saving Your Hands and Arms When Using Plarn
Cotton Yarn Market Bag
T-Shirt Yarn Market Bag
My Old Crochet Hook

Cotton Is King Market Bag

I love cotton! It's comfortable to wear, and it makes a wonderful shopping bag. Just for grins, I tried making The Ultimate Recycled Market Bag with regular worsted weight cotton yarn instead of plarn. It works up great. No modifications to the pattern are needed.


Like the plarn bags made from this pattern, the cotton version stretches when in use, and it stays a bit stretched after that. The picture above was taken after the first use. The other picture shows the bag holding 1/2 gallon of orange juice, a bag of coffee beans, a jar of peanut butter, and a 1 lb. carton of raisins... with room (and strength) to spare.

You can find more crochet tips and variations on The Ultimate Recycled Market Bag pattern in the following posts:
Saving Your Hands and Arms When Using Plarn
T-Shirt Yarn Market Bag
My Old Crochet Hook

Avoiding the Owie with Plarn

Working with plarn (PLastic yARN made from cut-up plastic bags) can be very hard on your hands and arms. I once thought I was getting arthritis in my elbow, but it turned out to be the plarn projects I was working on every day.

Here are some tips for saving your hands and arms from the pain that can go along with plarn work. You can use these with The Ultimate Recycled Market Bag pattern.

1. Work loosely. It’s the pulling that makes plarn hard on your muscles and joints.

2. Stick with crochet. I love knitting, but for plarn, knitting causes the strands to “grab” the needles, causing a lot of pushing and pulling to get each stitch made. Crochet can be done loosely enough to minimize the grabbiness.

3. Mesh crochet is best. When you work with chained loops instead of inserting the hook into actual stitches, the pushing and pulling is reduced even more.

4. Cut your plarn only one bag at at time. When you make a bag’s worth of plarn, work it up, and then stop to cut the next bag, you’ll be giving your hands and arms a much-needed rest.

5. Use the crinkly type of plastic bags, like you get from the grocery store. This plastic slides easily, and it’s less grabby than softer plastic from bread bags, ziplocs, etc.

6. Cut your plarn thin, but not too thin. When you use the strung-together-loops method for making plarn, the strands are doubled, so you can cut the plarn loops 1/2” or 1 cm wide and still have plenty of strength. Anything wider than 1/2” will be hard on your hands.

7. If you must use soft plastic bags, cut the loops 1/4” or .5 cm wide. Bread bag-type plastic is strong, so the thinner loops work up with plenty of strength.

8. Avoid using a plastic hook. Metal or a very smooth hardwood work better for reducing drag on the plarn.


You can find more crochet tips and variations for The Ultimate Recycled Market Bag pattern in the following posts:
How to Make Plarn
My Old Crochet Hook
Cotton Yarn Market Bag
T-Shirt Yarn Market Bag

The Ultimate Recycled Market Bag

This bag has been pronounced, “the ultimate recycled market bag” by one of the managers at my local HEB supermarket, from which the plarn was obtained. Plarn is made from cut-up plastic bags, and this pattern uses those ubiquitous plastic grocery store bags. It is very strong and long-lasting. In fact, after years of use, mine are still performing admirably.

U.S. crochet terms

Skill Level Easy

Yarn plarn from 20-25 lg. plastic grocery bags
(Instructions for making plarn are included in pattern.)

Schematic diagram included.

For a free .pdf of this pattern click here:

download now

I owe a debt of gratitude to Recycle Cindy, who inspires us all with her ground-breaking work with plarn and other recycled materials. I really didn't mean to use a similar pattern name to one of hers... really... the store manager named it.


You can find crochet tips and variations for this pattern in the following posts:
How to Make Plarn
Saving Your Hands and Arms When Using Plarn
Cotton Yarn Market Bag
T-Shirt Yarn Market Bag
Bag-In-Progress
My Old Crochet Hook