Recycled plastic bag envelope

This masterpiece of engineering is a mailing envelope which transforms into a tote bag - instructions on how to make it are here on the Etsy blog.

You can make it out of plastic fabric, or why not try making your own fabric out of plastic bags for a complete recycled craft experience. Making plastic bag fabric is easy, the final result is strong and really useful for bags, baby bibs, purses. I made a wonderful bag this way, about 5 years ago and as soon as I find it, I'll post a picture: it's gone into that cupboard upstairs that leads to Narnia...

French knitting bag

Anyone who has ever dabbled in the art of French knitting will tell you that the problem is not learning how to do the knitting itself - it's fun and easy, and a great introduction to yarn crafts for young children. No, the big problem is knowing what to do with it afterwards.

French knitting creates a long, long knitted tube. You can curl it round and sew it up to make a place mat or coaster, but that's hardly inspiring stuff for a young French knitter. I used to make worm cosies, which were just colourful lengths of tube. Sadly, I could never pursuade a real worm to use one.

A 1979 edition of Penny comic comes up with this inspired idea of making a French Knitting purse - a really keen French knitter could make a momentously long tube and create a shoulder bag. Now that's something a bit more exciting than a coaster, especially if you decorated it with beads and sequins, or buttons, or...

If you've never tried French Knitting, Penny also provides easy to follow instructions, below:


Traditionally, French Knitting "dollies" or "knitting nancies" were made out of old wooden cotton reels with four nails hammered into them. These days, cotton reels are made out of plastic, so this little bit of fun has been taken away from us by our society's obsession with petrochemicals. Great. There's no need to go out and buy an expensive ready made French Knitting dolly, though.

There are wonderful ways to make a knitting dolly out of Smartie tubes, toilet rolls, or an old table leg. Visit www.waynesthisandthat.com, www.allfreecrafts.com and www.how-to-knit-guide.com for instructions and inspiration. You may be able to find a second-hand wooden cotton reel, or try drilling a hole through the middle of a small length of thick wooden dowelling from a hardwear shop. Make your own recycled knitting nancy and let me know how you get on...

Retro 1960s Siamese cat model bag

Just finished this one-off Siamese cat shopping bag - now on sale for £9.00 including UK postage (add on £2.00 for airmail shipping). It's a 100% unbleached cotton tote bag measuring approx 37cm by 41cm, with long handles so you can wear it over your shoulder.

Siamese kitties are hand-painted and finished with a shiny transfer. Gentle hand-wash only (as is the case with all kitties). Drop me an email to reserve and I'll send you payment details, or if you're an Etsy fan, the bag is listed here.

Knitted Tamagotchi

We are a three Tamagotchi household - two of them were re-homed from Freecycle, which I suppose makes them "rescue Tamagotchis". The third is a Tamagotchi Music Star, which means it can form a band. Last week we couldn't work out how it could make money to buy itself food, so it had nothing to eat for a couple of days, which I think was taking the starving musician thing a bit too far.

But I digress. These Tamagotchis all needed somewhere to live, which is why my daughter put in a request for me to make a Tamagotchi bag.


The screen is at a lower level to the rest of the padded bag which means that the Tamagotchis can lounge around on it. When they are not in use, they can be stowed away inside and zipped up safely - the red zip looks like the infra red whatnot on top of the Tamagotchi egg.


This was one of those items that was incredibly fun to make as it involved a little of many different craft disciplines: the main body is knitted out of DK yarn, the carry strap was crocheted out of a thin gold thread, the little Ichigotchi was just enough intarsia knitting to be enjoyable, and I used a twisted chain stitch from a 1930s embroidery encyclopedia as the edging for the screen. Oh yes, and I had to sew on three buttons.

I think the Tamagotchis appreciate the effort...

Crochet video tape bag

I'm currently working on a black crochet handbag. It's half made out of video tape, salvaged from a tape that my video player chewed up last weekend, and half made out of some black 3 ply wool (used double) salvaged from an aborted 1940s bobble hat project.

The pattern is based on a bag from the rather disappointing book Crochet Bags! by Candi Jensen. I dislike the over-enthusiastic exclamation mark used in the book title. Is it supposed to suggest an element of surprise? You've found a book called Crochet Bags and -- golly -- you'll never guess what's inside -- patterns for crochet bags. Or is it, as I prefer to think, Candi Jensen barking out an order? Crochet Bags! Yes, Ms Jensen. Right away, Ms Jensen.

In the book, this bag looks grimly hippy-ish, crocheted in rather horrible brown, pink and white cotton yarn.

The video tape crochet looks surprisingly sophisticated. In the dim light of my basement, rather like jet beading. This probably doesn't come across on the photo -- that's the joy of taking pictures of an item made out of two kinds of black. I need to make 12 of these squares and then decide on what to do for the handle.