Plastic

Around 2 years ago I was looking for something to do with my lightweight shopping bags.  I'm not much of a greenie but the bags were piling up.  I had read on one of my favourite blog sites - St Corbinian's Bear (now defunct) that you could crochet sleeping mats for the homeless out of lightweight shopping bags.   "Perfect!" thought I.  Of course at the time I did not know how to crochet at all and did not have any equipment for said task, other than a large supply of shopping bags. 

No matter, the internet is a teacher of useful skills.  (If I ever need a primitive technology kiln in my backyard, I'm all set.)  There are many videos teaching crochet and some specifically teaching how to make sleeping mats for the homeless out of plastic bags.

So I got a 10mm crochet hook and started chopping up plastic bags and linking loops of plastic together and slowly but surely I began to crochet a mat.  I measured out my first chain stitch against a yoga mat and set the goal of making a yoga mat sized mat.   My sources informed me that I would need between 500-700 bags for a mat that big.  More than my stash but there were plenty more where they came from, right?

A plastic bag.

Folded

Cut

Looped

Lots of loops, Now a "thread"

Chain stitching my plastic thread.

The fates were against me, because just as I was getting towards the end of my stash all the supermarkets decided to phase out free lightweight shopping bags - for the environment!  The environment!  but what about the homeless!  Don't they deserve our free lightweight shopping bags lovingly crocheted into a sturdy waterproof and surprisingly comfy sleeping mats?  Apparently not.  So there I was with 10cm of a 2 metre long mat complete and my supply of plastic bags dried up.

Fear not!  I am resourceful.  I could buy lightweight garbage bags.  (hang on- it would be cheaper and maybe more comfortable if I just bought a new yoga mat and donated that.)  Then I realised that I had other plastic bags;  bigger, thicker plastic bags.  They would make a bigger thicker sleeping mat.  There were some technical difficulties.  Bigger thicker bags were harder to manipulate, so I chopped them up thinner.  Bonus - more plastic strands per bag.  Somewhere along the way I decided to chop up the plastic bags our bread comes in and accidentally discovered that bread bag plastic is the best for crocheting sleeping mats out of  and since my children (oh okay, and I) eat a lot of raisin toast my mat ended up with a pleasing purple tinge.  Being a beginner crocheter (is that a real word?)  did mean that my work developed something of a lean as it went along but I think that just adds to the charm.  Don't roll over homeless person!  Just jokes, it was all evened out in the end and duly dropped of to Vinnies.

Finished mat.  Roughly rectangular.

I'm now crocheting a new mat for the dog as his mat has worn out and he does like the smell of bread bags.