Ditch the Plastic: DIY Knitted Shopping Bag
5 Aug 2010
“Hey, where’d you get that great shopping bag? Oh, it’s so cute. Can I touch it?” Did you ever carry a little puppy around? If so, strangers clamor for a touch and to oogle the precious pup. If you needed any more incentives for ditching the plastic bag, this DIY knitted bag will elicit the puppy effect at the grocery store, farmers market and food coop.
Creator of the Monteagle Bag, Kay Gardiner from Mason-Dixon Knitting says, “One ‘eco’ thing about the Monteagle Bag is that it can be made in almost any linen or cotton yarn (including the cheap-but-tough dishcloth cotton brands), and it looks great made of several leftover colors. So it’s a way of using yarn that would otherwise be wasted or (shriek!) thrown into the landfill.” CLICK HERE FOR MORE
JoeT.
Aug 09, 2010 @ 11:59:00
I just read through your “DIY Decorating with Nautical Knots” post and thought of a great way to repurpose plastic bags by using knots. Ditching plastic is a great idea but Americans alone throw away something like 100 billion plastic shopping bags a year with only 1 to 3 percent recycled. I watched one day as my daughter’s roommate in college took a huge armful of plastic bags she had collected, rolled them into a rope like form, and knotted them all together. Like your knitted bags, her knotting technique made one tough reusable shopping bag. If you know how this is done, it would be great if you could post directions on your site. I remember she even organized the bags by color so that her new reusable shopping bags were color coordinated. I always think of reuse or repurposing first before recycling, which should be the last resort before putting it into a landfill or sending it to a burn plant.
Ronnie
Aug 09, 2010 @ 18:02:52
Yes, you can knit with plastic strips cut from plastic bags. Here’s a very cool round-up from Craft of stuff made with plastic bags and kept out of the landfill: http://blog.craftzine.com/archive/2007/08/plastic_bag_crafts.html.
Jordyn
Aug 13, 2010 @ 13:04:20
I love this idea! I think I will make this my autumn knitting project! Thanks for this post!