Lesson 2 - Recycling

Today's was the first full-on lesson.  The morning group enjoyed some of the recycling ideas, although they are mostly doing their own things.  Some beautiful work coming along here. Jennie's hats are great - so different.  Must get some photos.
Barbara and Sian have been working on pieces of what will become a very long scarf - looking good.  Again - I must remember my camera each week.

 In the afternoon, all got right into the recycling session.  We made "plarn" - plastic yarn out of shopping bags and some pretty coloured kitchen tidy bags Sian had found at the local $2-type shop.
Check out this 2min 30sec YouTube clip on how to make plarn: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdTm2V4ssvY
  Some beautiful work happening here - all are using different colours or colour combinations and it's amazing the variety we're seeing.  Photos soon - There will be a real range.  We had some hilarious conversation about the things we could make from plarn, although at the moment we are sticking to the bags!  (Anyone for plastic pants?)  We did think they'd be very useful for school swimming stuff.  Must make sure we're not using bio-degradable plastic - I think it's made from cornstarch - very annoying!
The pattern says to use size 13 & 15 needles, but we found the best size is about a 5 or 6 mm.  Some of the evening group had some difficulty with cutting the strips a bit narrow so they kept breaking, and a couple found it just so much easier to crochet than to knit.
Lots of variety here, with Keitha choosing to make a smaller bag (cute), or others just a sample square.  It'll be interesting to see what turns up next week!

I demonstrated cutting t-shirts into continuous strips to make a knittable yarn, and again someone tried crocheting and found this very effective, although we will need a lot of t-shirts!  Luckily the local op shops have cheapos - must make sure I get along to the "fill a bag for $1" days.  Click here for a tutorial on making t-shirt yarn.  Such fun!  http://www.craftpassion.com/2009/05/recycle-tutorial-making-of-t-shirt-yarn.html

We had some great "show and tell" - have to get a photo of Sian's incredible bag for our exhibition raffle - just brilliant.  And Robyn has made a piece to hang on one of our trees, inspired by the sunset over Orewa estuary - lovely.  Barbara and Jennie's hyperbolic crochet pieces will be added to the Seagardens Aotearoa exhibition next week.

We also discussed more ideas for the exhibition and people are making good use of my library - I now have around 200 knitting and crochet books.  I am working on siting them at the Arts Centre so they are more accessible.

WE ARE HAVING FUN!!