Those plastic bags

Over at her blog, Salihah by Sea, Salihah wrote about jurisdictions trying to cut down on plastic bag waste. Now, I have a largish collection of grungy-looking canvas bags (even when they've been washed, they still look grungy. *sigh*) and even one cute little heart shaped bag - it's actually a grocery sized bag that folds down into it's own zippered pouch - useful, handy, and very, very cute. There is also a version that is a rectangle. The cute bag lives in my craft bag that goes everywhere with me, along with my crochet hook collection and a few random balls of yarn. That way, any impulse grocery runs can be easily cloth bagged, and I try to remember a few of the grungy bags for larger runs.

But I also have a work in progress that I consider both incredibly appropriate and well, hard on the hands. I'm crocheting a bag out of plastic shopping bags. Essentially, you cut the bags into strips, then use the strips as yarn. It's slow going, not just because I'm making the "yarn" as well as crocheting it, but because I can't do it for very long at any one time - there's no stretch or give at all. Even cotton, which is notoriously hard on the hands, is easier. I also found along the way, that 1 grocery bag makes up nicely into 1 "scrubby" - cut the bag in a spiral after removing the bottom seam (while most instructions tell you to cut off the handles, too, I just sort of incorporate them in the spiral). Then crochet a circle using all the plastic. If you just hold it in your hand, it will feel soft, like a bunched up plastic bag (which it essentially is), but if you rub it against your hand, you can feel how it works as a scrubbie.