More Brooches, a Lesson on Plarn, Some of this, Some of that

Hello Readers!

I went on a Brooch making spree again. I'll show the newest ones in the batch and I will tell you how I make plarn in this post. We will also see a few bags and a stuffed elephant.

Sleep has been a major part of my life for the last few days. The fibro takes hold and I do a lot of sleeping. And when I'm not sleeping I make things. I did get the laundry caught up in the last few days as well. Laundry is an easy chore...doesn't take a whole lot out of me to put clothes in the washing machine. The hard part is transferring the wet stuff into the dryer. That wears me out!

At any rate, I get a lot of things made some days. Other days, not so much done.

Let's get on with this....

 For some reason these little felt brooches have taken over my life for the last week or so. This is a picture of all but the four bird brooches that started this whole felt brooch making spree into action. I have a couple more that are cut out and ready for sewing. I quite sewing though to do some crocheting instead. I will get back to the brooches though.

 Blue bird brooch.

 Green Fish Brooch

This started out to be another bird brooch but that green shape looked more like a fish than a bird so a fish it became. The outside edge is actually yellow, not the same color green as the fish.

 blue and orange birds

I figured if one bird worked, why not two?

 purple bird brooch

 red and purple birds

I really like the colors on this one! 

 Single purple bird

 purple fish

I like the black background behind the fish. 

I don't really think about what color goes where when I'm cutting these out of felt scraps. I'm aware of the colors, but I just let it flow and however it turns out is how it turns out.

 Fat red bird.

No pattern, just snip, snip, snip until it comes together.

 The round brooches were working swimmingly, so why not a fish shaped one as well?

This guy really needs a tiny button sewn into the center of his eye! Those sequins took a bit of time to sew on. This one is about three inches long.

 yellow and gray birds

All of the brooches have lapel pin backs. Some have two prongs, most only one.

 I found this little bag the day before yesterday in a plastic jar where I stored it while it was being made. I kept all the components in that jar and totally forgot I had even made it till I saw it again. It's about 7 inches wide, 5 inches from top of bag to bottom. It's crocheted out of some nylon yarn that was packaged with instructions to make a pair of slippers. It wouldn't have made very comfy slippers! It's scratchy and not at all nice to touch. The flap is a piece of cow leather that was once the covering of a reclining chair. It has a woven leather button and a long strap crocheted from the same yarn as the bag. I call this type of bag a crossbody bag.

 Another crossbody bag. This one is about 8 inches tall, 6 inches wide? I don't know, I'm totally guessing on the measurements for all the things in this post. It is crocheted out of acrylic yarn.

 The strap is braided on the braiding disk.

 I totally forgot about this bag too. I had this bag started before I went to my son's house at the beginning of September. I took it with me and finished while at my son's house. I was emptying bags I had brought home with me from that trip yesterday when I came across it. It's a huge bag! About 16 inches tall, 14 across the bottom...It's a round bag. I crocheted acrylic yarn in various colors around macrame cord.

 I have a boatload of pink yarn so expect to see a lot of pink where bags are concerned from here on out. There is a fair amount of yellow, white and purple as well.

This is a medium sized market bag. It's about 14 inches tall, 10 wide. Acrylic yarn.

 Another find from my unbagging a few days ago. I was in the process of making him when I went away to RJson's house as well. I finished him early in my 19 day stay. Someone will get this fella in the mail some day. His body is made from a wool coat, his tail is jute cord braided on the braiding disk, his tusks are felt and his saddle is felt also. The bells are aluminum. He's about 8 inches long?

 This bag is in progress. Acrylic yarn in shades of pink. Pink, except for that rust color. It works, but it ain't pink. I actually paid attention to the colors when choosing what colors to use. That rust color isn't pink though and I initially wanted to dispose of some of that pink yarn with this bag. That will happen with some of these colors, like the darkest pink color and lightest one. And the rust color will be almost gone when this bag is done also. 

And as you all know is always the case...I have other things in the works too.

I've put a few rounds on the plarn bag you all saw last post. We will talk about plarn in a bit here.

There's a market bag in the works being crocheted out of rafia yarn in three colors.

 I started a paper mache bowl the day before yesterday

and I've crocheted half a bag with purple yarn, tore it out and rolled the purple yarn into a ball. 

I have four huge skeins of that purple yarn and have attempted to crochet two different things from it. Both got tore out and rolled into balls. I'm not sure what will become of the purple yarn. I may use it as a main color for the scrap yarn bag that will eventually be made from all the tiny balls of yarn that are building in my stash.

Sometimes my muse is running in fifteen directions at once!

Mel asked if making plarn was easy. In my opinion, yes. It is easy to make. 

All you need are some plastic bags and a pair of good cutting scissors. There are a few different ways to make it. You can use what I call the tunnel version or the ring version. I prefer the ring version for larger bags and the tunnel version for smaller bags. ANY plastic bag can be turned into plarn. In the picture above:

yellow is Dollar General bags

pink and blue are trash bags

all the others are dog waste pickup bags

I cut all these bags using the ring version. I'll go find a video that shows you what I call the ring version of cutting plarn.

This video will demonstrate the ring version. She calls it the biscuit method.
This is my preferred method of making plarn. I let it pile up on the floor for awhile before I wind it into balls.
 

I use the tunnel version mostly when cutting bread sacks into plarn. I use more than just bread sacks though. Ice bags, bagel bags, potato sacks, ect. These bags are just easier to cut using the tunnel version. Potato sacks have small holes all over them so the potatoes can breathe. In using the tunnel version you end up with one long string from the bag. Using the ring version you end up with a bunch of rings of plastic that you have to then connect into a two stranded long long string of plarn. You can't connect the potato sacks together like that because of the jagged edges that the holes leave. But those jagged edges just disappear into your work so the tunnel version works best for the potato bags. And the bread sacks are long and skinny which makes it easy to get your whole arm into the bag once you've started the cuts. 

I will find a video showing how the tunnel version is done also.

 video
She calls this the tube method. Tube, tunnel, close.

It will amaze you how much string you can get from one bag. 

I cut my plarn to be about 1/2 to 3/4 inch wide. You can cut it smaller or larger and accuracy in thickness isn't all that important. You just don't want a lot of variance in the thickness. Different bags are of different weight, but they are usually close enough to play nicely together. The yellow plarn in the sample above is much thicker than the other bags. It still works though.

Yesterday I cut a plastic tablecloth into plarn.
This video will show you how to cut plarn from a flat panel.

ANY plastic sheet or bag can be turned into plarn. 

I hope this was helpful. There are many videos on YouTube demonstrating how to turn plastic bags into plarn. The one's I have shared are only one woman's demonstration of the many, many videos I watched when I first started making plarn. This lady shows you clearly how to make plarn.  It's really not hard. Good luck!

I will leave you with the North Field. Green as it can be! No cows in sight, yet. Ma says it may be too early to put cows on the wheat. I'll keep my eyes open for cows!

The white circle in the picture is of a combine harvesting milo in the next field over. If you click on the picture (or any other picture in the post) it will get bigger. We had our first hard frost early last week. Once it does that it is time to harvest milo (aka sorghum). If I'd been thinking when we went through town yesterday, I'd of taken a picture of that giant pile of milo sitting on the ground at the Co-op in town. But as is usually the case, I didn't think of it till now. Sorry...:( Maybe I'll get my act together soon and all these photo ops will not be lost on me? :) Who knows!

Winter is definitely on its way in! 

The sand hill cranes flew over last week. They announced their arrival and were still squawking as they flew out of sight! Noisy critters! I never get a close up look at them, as they are high in the sky and flying south to warmer parts when I see them. Love hearing them fly over though and I always go out to look even though I can barely see the flock as it flies over head. My guesstimate of the size of the flock is around 30 birds.

The vultures vacated the Co-op grain bins in the center of town a couple weeks ago. They too have flown to warmer parts. I wish I could fly to warmer parts but alas, I cannot so I will just have to hunker down and stay put for the winter! 

Lotty the possum was back last night, like every night now, to see what tidbits were in the bowl on the porch. She doesn't like cinnamon toast. She licked the bottom of that bowl clean of the dregs of cream I poured from the empty carton and the remnants of my baked potato had vanished as well. Lotty will fare well for the winter. 

I gotta remind brother to turn the heat lamps on under the house so the pipes do not freeze! Lotty will appreciate the heat lamps! Yeah, Lotty will fare well for the winter! I only hope she doesn't have a herd of friends join her in her cushy pad beneath the house. Hopefully she will heartily defend her catered meals and not let anyone muscle in on her luxurious lifestyle. I can't afford two possums! Thankfully the youngster hasn't been seen again. Possums pretty much hang by themselves and don't live in large groups.

I'm sure I'll be back sooner than later with more art and crafts to share, probably a tale about a critter or two and who knows what!

 Thanks for hanging in there to the end.

Remember...

Be kind to one another!

It matters!

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