Upcycle kitchen cloth

1350 gr of cotton stash, leftovers, recycled yarn, abandoned projects and yarn from the thrift shop has been turned into 37 kitchen cloths. Already given some away. My little effort to limit micro plastic washing into the oceans. Still plenty of ends to weave in, for a rainy Sunday. There is a very nice Danish Facebook group called "vi strikker vores kareklude selv". 

chunky upcycled pouf

This was a small weekend project. I came across 2 ugly poufs in the thrift store, I unraveled the 5 kg of rope and turned it into a chill "pebble" pouf. Stuffed with an old duvet. Hubby is saying we now have enough poufs in da house :-)

Leftovers from Industry

Høken or haken? that's the question. Over the summer I got together with 2 other crafters Ellen from Studio Sillekens and Jaenell haken-en-ogen on Ravelry. Ellen had challenged us to find out what we could make with curtain cord leftovers from Industrial production which was donated by Conny Pasman from Verosol.

It's such a pity to let the beautiful cord go to waste, it has this muted shine which makes it look slightly like silk. We have 2 qualities a thick and a thin quality. Both are quite hard and not suited for clothing. Both can be knitted or crocheted, thick one on needle size 10, though perhaps macrame might be a better technique. it's tricky to work with the cord because it curls, so you have to continuously uncurl it as you work, and still then the finished work has a tendency to twist.

So far we have made bags, a basket and an attempt at a rug. And we have been trying different techniques and stitches. Some that camouflage the curling, and some that enhance it.

Here's what I made,

tote-bag in Industrial Leftover curtain yarn

tote-bag in Industrial Leftover curtain cord

close-up of the tote-bag in Industrial Leftover curtain cord

broomstick lace

work-in-progress broomstick lace totebag in Industrial Leftover curtain cord

a little girls bag in Industrial Leftover curtain cord

breadbasked in Industrial Leftover curtain cord wrapped around a hemp rope

breadbasked in Industrial Leftover curtain cord wrapped around a hemp rope

colours of the thin quality curtain cord

Supersize crochet plarn rabbit

This giant rabbit is really astonishing. It's the work of Erika Scharff, all made out of old plastic bags, however not known how many of them went into this work, but I could imagine it must have been a truck-load. It participated in the Greenheart Artprice 2011, where it ended up a shared third. Rumor has it that the Rabobank has bought it and that it will be installed at the Rabobank headquarters in Utrecht.
link thanks to @Pascrosie

mijn konijn by Erica Schaff @ Nieuwkoop

mijn konijn by Erica Schaff @ Nieuwkoop

Make a plarn shopper bag

A great way to give a second and enduring life to all those used (disposable) plastic bags that tend to pile up in the cupboard.

I used appx. 30 plastic bags for this bag, crochet needle 6mm. The size of needle that works will depend on how wide you cut the strips. I have figured out a way of cutting the plastic bags into one long uninterrupted strip.

STEP 1
collect enough plastic bags to make a bag, I used around 30, just regular shopping bags. If you want a nice fluent design you need to pay attention to the colors. Lay them out on a table or on the floor. Look at how you want your gradient / stripes to work, one bag makes between 2 and 3 stripes. Most of the bags are white from the inside, so that will wash the colors out. Put your bags in chronological order, which bag first etcetc. I.e. I decided to use my black bags first, so that the bottom of my bag wouldn't show dirt immediately.

STEP 2
check that all the bags are clean. If they are not wipe them off with a cloth, or maybe even wash them (by hand) and dry them. also check if all bags are in good condition. Some bags may be a bit decomposing, that won't work so nicely anymore, as the strip will then break all the time.

STEP 3
making the plarn. Now cut the strip, this is the most difficult part! First lay the plastic bag down flat on the table. Check the bottom of the bag, there is a sort of fold in the bag, cut that ply open up around the side is probably necessary, so that you really have the bag flat on the table. Then fold it double, and  again from the middle fold over one more time, it should not go all the way to the side leave around 3 cm free. do this twice if necessary.

Now cut the "roll". I used a scissor, the knife in the picture is just there to add weight. cut slits through the roll, but leave the side-space untouched (the 3 cm) I cut my slits with appx 2 cm in-between. If the plastic is thinner or softer you can make it wider, if you are working a thicker very solid bag, make it less.

Now roll-out the bag and cut loose and trash the handle-bit as well as the bottom-bit. Now we need to make the slits into one long strip. On one side of the bag, continue the slit all the way through, then the bag will look like this:

And now here follows the trick. Take hold of the side of the bag where the slits have not been cut through. Study it carefully, place an imaginary diagonal line between the end of one slit and the beginning of the next. You now need to cut from slit to slit, every time along this imaginary diagonal line. Be careful to not cut through some of the other strip by accident. Finish the strip by cutting a little diagonal cut out the border. Now you have turned one plastic bag into one long uninterrupted strip!

STEP 4
crocheting the bag. Crochet the bag like you would do with any other crochet work.

Bottom
Mine is simply a chain of 25 stitches,
2nd round; 3 hf cr stch into first loop, then half cr.stch into each loop, 3 hf cr.stch into last loop, back again by half cr.stch into each loop.
3rd round; 2 hf cr stch into first loop, 1 hf cr stch, 2 hf cr stch, countinue to the other end and make the corner in the same way you did the first, and crochet all along the side.
4rd round; 2 hf cr stch into first loop, 3 hf. cr stch, 2 hf cr stch, continue to the other end and make the courner in the same way and finish the other side.
from here just continue in rounds.

Handle.
Leave a space open of 9 stitches, crochet back and forwards 3 rows, cut the strip and start on the second half. upon finishing the second bit, re-establish the lost bit of the handle by looping 9 stitches in both holes. Continue in rounds again.

STEP5
make a knob by crocheting a little roset, use a piece of elastic band to fasten to the knob.


Featured on Instructables on 24th of January 2012

what has the Knitbitch been up to?

You have not heard much about the work of the Knitbitch herself lately. Let me tell you about a project that I have been working on, it's not finished, but well on it's way.  The poufs. There are 2 of them now, still working on the 3rd one.

After. 2 finished poufs.

If you have read some of my earlier posts you would know that my stash is not just a stash, it's a mountain that has accumulated over many, many years. Many people would say throw it all away it's worthless. I'm thinking this is a nice challenge for me, to bring all this yarn to use. Some of the yarn that I have accumulated is not exactly human body friendly. It's really itchy, actually I think it's carpet yarn. So for a number of times I started making poufs. My two first attempts where failures. The yarn was just not thick enough to make the crochet fit the proportion of the pouf, and once I started knitting a tube and filling it that was just too fat.

Then I suddenly remembered my mum's (again it's her) old trick for faking spool-knitting, and I started knitting a tube that way. And then it worked. However the tube became so thick that I could only do the crochet by hand. Not such a big problem as the crochetting itself is not work compared to the tube-knitting work which in this case took ages, spending nights in-front of telly. Working off all the daily stress through knitting.

How-to megacrochet a pouf

the projects are not really re-knitting projects, except for the grey pouf which is half re-knit. Half of the yarn came from a sweater-jacket that i had made almost 20 years ago. It was still beautiful, but I have not worn it for 18 years, so I set to un-ravelling it to create the pouf from it.

Before. Jacket I knitted appx. 20 years ago.

will show you the whole collection once pouf nr.3 is finished. It might take a little while!

Reknit Project Number One

Also for project number one there was too little yarn for a complete sweater. That's why it became a poncho. One day during the christmas holiday I suddenly knew it, a poncho would be just the right thing to make. Probably made several attempts before it ended up like it is, but it wasn't too bothersome, because the yarn is very thick, so it knits away very fast.

it's a very warm and comfortable poncho, that you can really hide away in.

I used my moms basic way of creating a garment starting from the neck, just increase 2x4 stitches every 2nd round and it will fit, after having passed the width of the shoulders, increase less. As with everything else, I crafted it as I found fitting as I went along, so there is no real recipy. Because it's reknit out of an old sweater-jacket I also cannot tell you what yarn, but I assume hand-spun.