I shared last month that I was working on a new crocheted recycled tote bag. I call this recycled bag my harvest tote bag. I used mainly white retail bags for the tote but added orange and black bags to create a Halloween harvest themed tote.
As you can imagine, orange and black plastic bags are hard to come by. So with such few of these bags available, I was only able to use them sparely in crocheting this recycled tote bag project. I used the free recycled grocery tote pattern to crochet the project. Just follow the original pattern with the following changes. The harvest stripes were crocheted with one round of black plarn followed by four rounds with orange plarn and then one more round using black plarn. My plarn (plastic bag yarn) is made by
I have been busy crocheting a recycled tote bag for a future charity fundraiser. This bag was crocheted using the free ultimate grocery bag pattern.
The pattern creates a 13 inches long reusable tote bag. I used around 50 plastic retail sacks to crochet the bag. The green handles were plarn I made from lightweight grocery bags that I recycled. Here is a closeup photo below to show the crocheted green handles.
Just finished up crocheting this recycled plastic bag wine holder. It used about 40 salmon-colored recycled newspaper bags made into plarn aka plastic bag yarn. I added a few white plastic retail bags for the stripe.
This particular recycled bag project was crocheted using my free Japanese knot pattern that I first published in 2015. If you are not familiar with a Japanese knot, it is a closure that features two handles. One handle is shorter than the other so you can pull the longer handle through the shorter as a quick and unique closure. I used a K crochet hook for this bag as I wanted a smaller tote bag for a wine bottle holder. My finished size following the original pattern with a K hook is 11 inches tall by 9 inches wide at top.
Here is a photo of the tote bag without the wine bottle.
A customer asked me if I could crochet her a large plastic bag tote to store her paper for recycling. She wanted a very large tote bag 18 inches wide, with a 7 inches base and 12 inches tall. Of course it had to have handles for carrying and be made from recycled plastic bags. I love a challenge and to crochet such a recycled tote bag was fun.
I used around 90 recycled plastic sacks cut 1 inch wide to complete this recycled paper holding tote. I used the double strand plarn making method to crochet this tote. Here are a few photos of the completed bag.
Here is a photo of the recycled tote bag laying flat.
Here is a new recycled plastic bag yarn project. This pattern is called a Japanese Knot bag as it features 2 handles. One long and one shorter, which closes by sliding the longer handle through the shorter one as shown. The Japanese-styled bags are often times made smaller and worn over the wrist.
This tote bag is crocheted using recycled plastic bags made into yarn known as plarn. It can be worn over the wrist or also draped over your shoulder.
Here is the free Japanese Knot Bag pattern written using plarn but it also can be crocheted using bulky yarn or 2 strands of worst weight yarns held together.
The finished size of this recycled tote bag is
I have a new resource for brown plastic bags! Local Safeway stores have gone back to the brown plastic retail bags and I just love recycling them into new reusable tote bags.
Here is the recycled plastic bag or plarn tote bag I crocheted with the brown retail sacks. I also used some red plastic newspaper bags that an on-line friend sent me that her Wall Street Journal was delivered in. The red bags were just right to compliment the brown bags with the red writing on them and made for a nice stripe on the tote bag.
But the special thing about this recycled tote bag is the dual handles. It has the normal hand grip handle in the middle and also a 30 inch long shoulder strap. So you can either grip the bag with your hands or throw the long strap over your shoulder.
I followed one of my basic crocheted plarn tote bag patterns found here but with a few modifications. My changes were for the first six rounds, I worked single crochet (SC) stitches
I crocheted this latest recycled plastic bag or plarn tote using lots of white plastic bags and a few red and grey plastic bags. Recycling all the white retail plastic bags I get can be challenging. Let’s face it, the white bags are boring and need something to help brighten up the project when you crochet or knit with them. So by adding some colorful bags, I created a few stripes to spice up this recycled tote bag.
I used the free recycled round grocery tote pattern to crochet this bag. I just changed up the stripes of colored plarn a bit for a different look than the original pattern. But otherwise it’s the same pattern. As with any pattern, you can always just make a few changes which will result in a new look.
Below is another picture taken with the tote bag laying down flat.
I just finished crocheting this striped reusable tote bag. Each year I crochet a recycled bag item for my local Relay for Life event. They use the donated items in gift baskets and for their fundraising.
I used my ultimate recycled grocery tote pattern to crochet this bag. I just added three rows with pink recycled plastic bags or plarn, one row with blue, and then three final rows in pink again before switching back to white plarn. Finding the colored plastic bags isn’t easy and just a few can spice up a plain white tote bag such as this one. Plus I always like to use pink in my projects that I crochet for Relay for Life in support of breast cancer awareness.
This crocheted recycled tote bag measures
I present a pink and grey plastic bag tote featuring a netting stitch look. I crocheted this tote bag using recycled grey retail bags and pink plastic newspaper sacks. Both types of plastic bags were cut into strips using these plarn making tutorials.
I just love the fish net look of this stitch in pink plarn. It’s just so pretty looking. The contrast between the pink plarn and grey really works well together.
I made some minor changes from the original plastic net market bag pattern. I used a J (6 mm) crochet hook when I crocheted the pink plarn section. The pink recycled bags are thinner and the J hook makes a tighter stitch. I also did 23 rounds finishing
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