“Its always concerned me the amount of plastic bags they use here and I had the idea of using that to make things with,” Kowarick said in an e-mail. “After searching the web for the last two days I finally stumbled on your videos and then website.  I love your approach and am really inspired by the creative potential! Thanks so much for posting what you do online so others like me, even in Cameroon!, can be inspired to find use for these flimsy plastic bags that are destroying our lovely planet.”

After creating her first crocheted bag (pictured below), Kowarick was motivated to take the project to the next level and teach the handicraft to others.  Another Peace Corps volunteer, Rachael Saler, initiated a similar project in the Phillipines with great success (See: Peace Corps Volunteer in the Phillipines Turns Recycled Bags into Purses). And seeing how Saler’s project was so well received by the local community, Kowarick garnered even more inspiration to initiate something similar in Cameroon.

I enjoy getting updates from Kowarick about her projects there and am excited to hear more about her progress. She commissioned a local artist to craft large wooden hooks, started a small crochet group with some neighborhood girls near her home, and has been teaching plarn workshops at various environmental camps in the village.

More recently, she taught some kids in an orphanage how to crochet plarn into pencil holders. They loved it!

Kowarick guesses she has taught plastic bag crochet to more than 100 kids so far. Here is a photo she sent me with one of her neighbors modeling a crocheted plastic bag she made (complete with a hand-crafted plastic flower).

It’s not made from plastic bags, but I thought it would still be of interest to fellow crocheters.

I actually made it for a Vanna White Contest last year (she apparently has her own brand of yarn). While it wasn’t selected as one of the winners, I’m still really glad I made it. I wore for Halloween this year and several friends have worn it for various costume parties.

Here are some photos and my description of the outfit:

This Mexican wrestler costume can be worn by both men and women. Mexican wrestlers (or luchadores) have become iconic symbols of Mexican culture. Their outfits generally consist of simple color combinations so that the specific wrestler is easily distinguishable. While I created my own pattern and did not model it after a particular wrestler, I stuck with a similar style and transformed a few basic colors of yarn into an entire Mexican wrestler outfit. I constructed a belt, leg warmers, arm warmers, and a mask (complete with a mohawk and horns). Lucha libre, which translates literally as “Free Wrestling” has been popular in Mexico since the 1930s. You can learn more about it here.

A group of guerilla crochet artists in Barcelona crocheted beards, roped themselves into a little spot, and held a demonstration on the streets about the lack of men doing crafts. Here’s a site (in Spanish) detailing the project.

http://duduadudua.blogspot.com/2011/04/la-cronica-de-la-5a-guerrilla-de.html

So it turns out that someone saw the demonstration, decided to have them entered into a street art competition. Here is an album of them at the competition. They got 2^nd place and received a giant check for 2,500 euro.

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150253772121412.369646.43332106411

But I recently flew up to Pittsburgh to help my grandma move, so off I went to the Jewish Museum to check out the exhibit. It was pretty cool to see the final creation of all the breasts sewn together!

Here are photos of the exhibit

Next to the reef of breasts, there was a map showing where all the participants in the project are from. Most are from the US, but there were also breasts sent from Australia, Brazil, and the Philippines.

Can you find me? I’m the only one from Austin, TX and there’s a photo of me wearing my crocheted breast as a hat.

An explanation of the exhibit is below, but I’m not sure how easy it is to read it…so I’ll replicate it here:

When I learned that mothers are passing toxins to their newborns through breast milk, it hit me like a ton of bricks. How could we have let this most sacred rite be tainted with such disregard for the world’s resources?

Plastic, the most prevalent component of ocean debris, threatens life on earth because it persists so long in the water. Over time, plastic breaks down into tinier and tinier bits that actually absorb other toxic chemicals. Fish that eat plankton feed mistakenly on these particles. Toxins then leach into fish tissues as they work their way up the food chain. Scientists believe that some of the toxins commonly found in breast milk may have originated from this source.

It occurred to me that many women who like to crochet and/or who have environmental concerns might be interested in participating in an international, collaborative eco-art project to address this issue. The response was overwhelming! Three groups formed in Pittsburgh and from there it spread as far as Brazil, Australia, and the Philippines. Visit our blog (H20forall.blogspot.com) to find out more about the project.

Special thanks to all participants!

This past Friday, Lela and I gathered at the Blanton Museum with all our fellow crocheters/knitters/weavers to sew up our tree sweaters.

The exhibit should be up for a few weeks.

Heather Sutherland, organizer of the Knotty Knitters meetup group, was in charge of crocheting directional arrows on trees around the UT campus.

And here’s a map showing where ours is in the grand scheme of things. We’re tree #55.

It looks like this. Yay!

As soon as our tree was all wrapped up, an ant came by to inspect it.

Here are closeups of some of the other trees:

More pics of the event can be found here.

Previous posts about this event can be found here:

http://bagsbegone.com/2011/01/20/knitted-wonderland-at-the-blanton-museum-of-art-in-austin-tx/

http://bagsbegone.com/2011/02/10/knitted-wonderland-project-update/

In preparation for the exhibit, Wendy is collecting crocheted plastic bag breasts! All contributions must be received by April 1 so that she can join them all together into a floating reef. Everyone who contributes will be acknowledged for their collaboration and it just sounds like a really fun project to get involved with. I plan to send her a breast. Do you crochet or know someone who does? Why not make a breast too?

You can learn more about this project, how to get involved, and specific project guidelines at Wendy’s site: Something In the Water.

*Wendy recommends using H-J sized hooks, so that the shapes are tightly crocheted and take on more sculptural forms. And her main submission guideline is that the colors the nipple strongly contrast with the rest of the breast.

To get an idea of what a crocheted breast looks like, I found a few photos on her site:

I finished the top half of the tree trunk, creating random strips in Tunisian crochet.

Lela is being more systematic about her half and is knitting nice color coordinated pinstripes.

We met up last weekend for an initial fitting and it looks great so far!

It’s been a fun project, but much more labor intensive than I expected. I’m sure everyone uses different terminology to refer to it…but here’s how it’s being described by Austin 360:

‘This is the museum’s contribution for “Explore UT,” the University of Texas’ annual open house. The “Knitted Wonderland” project is a collaboration with Magda Sayeg, the Austin knitter behind recent instances of “knit graffiti” such as the Lamar Boulevard underpass, and similar commissions all over the world.

Borrowing the vernacular of graffiti to talk about a monster team of knitters who adorn public objects is definitely a stretch, but it probably sounds a lot cooler to say you’re “yarn-bombing” 99 trees at the Blanton than to say you’re laboring for 20 to 40 hours to cover a tree for the sake of arts and crafts.’

The full article can be found here.

Anyway, over 100 people showed up for the initial meeting, so some of us will be working in pairs. Here is a picture of everyone measuring their trees in the courtyard.

My friend and knitting buddy, Lela, and I will be working together on our tree: #55.

We finally acquired the yarn and will be meeting up tomorrow to start knitting! I’ll post about our progress as it develops.

You can also stay updated on the project through the Knitted Wonderland Facebook page.