Since there’s been a heavy focus on environmentally friendliness, with Earth Day being yesterday, I thought I’d share some nice environmentally-friendly chrochet ideas.

Market Bags.

These are a fairly popular crochet project, with many different variations.  You can make them whatever size you need, and decorate them to suit your tastes.  You can make them out of any type of yarn or fabric.  You can make as many as you want, and then bring them to the store with you to hold your groceries/shopping items, and avoid getting the plastic grocery bags.  Crochet Pattern Central has several market bag patterns(simply search the word ”market”) available, but it’s very easy to create your own pattern.  You can stitch together several squares, you can make a tube, you can make one long rectangle and sew up the sides, the possibilities are endless.

Plastic Bag Crochet.

Suppose you haven’t created some market bags, and so you come home with tons of plastic grocery bags.  Nothing to do but throw them out, right?  Well, if you’re the crafty type, you can turn those bags into anything from a purse to a pair of sandals!  Sometimes referred to as “plarn” (plastic yarn), plastic bags can be cut into strips, twisted, and tied together to make a unique “yarn” of sorts that is almost as versatile as normal yarn.  Click here for a tutorial on how to make plarn.  You can also use the tape from old VHS cassettes for a similar-thickness yarn, or the tape from old audio cassettes for a thinner yarn.  Some examples of plarn projects are a rug, a bag, coasters, and a pair of sandals.

Some Eco-Friendly Crafting Sites.

What’s Cluttering My Couch

HolisticMaMa.com

21st Century Girl: 10 Eco Friendly Knit and Crochet Projects

How to Choose Environmentally Friendly Yarn

MyRecycledBags.com

I’ve mentioned crocheting for charity before, but this story really jumped out at me.  It’s about a 95 year old North Carolina woman who crochets blankets for children who are victims of domestic or sexual abuse.  It’s inspiring to see someone at that age still going strong helping others, especially children in need.

It’s very uplifting to come across articles like this, that show that the yarn arts aren’t dead.  Although, I have to say that though the articles phrases it at “Once associated with grandmothers,” I still do get comments when I crochet about it being a grandma thing (look how many of these pictures show older women).  It is very nice to see the young crowd of yarnworkers getting some attention, though.  Now we just need to get more guys in on it.   Maybe if word starts getting out about how cool knitting and crocheting are, us yarners will become the cool kids on the block

Now, if we could just get more celebrities to crochet the way the article says they knit…

Interestingly enough, just days after posting about the knitted English garden, I found this article from the New York Times about a crocheted coral reef.  The project, the Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef, is designed entirely from crochet and aims to raise awareness about the effects of global warming, similar to the AIDS quilt raising awareness for AIDS.

^crocheted coral reef

^Great Barrier Reef in Australia

It’s great when something can help the community.  It’s doubly great when something benefits the community in two separate ways.  This is the case with this article.  The article is about prison inmates who crochet baby blankets for pregnancy centers.  Not only are these babies receiving one of a kind handmade blankets, but the inmates are receiving the satisfaction of creating something good and gaining a positive skill.

 <—-director of a pregnancy center displaying donated blankets

I found this site online called KnittaPlease.com.  Upon browsing the site, I discovered that Knitta is a group of knitters who actually go around the world and use their knitting to decorate public places.  This is quite a unique concept, and if you look at the pictures, some of them are pretty cool.  I only wonder how they get permission to put up their decorations