Hella Jorgensen

Look at these nifty crochet sea creatures by Hella Jorgensen at Gooseflesh (via Whipup). Hella makes all manner of great things from yarn as well as from plastic bags. Hella needs more colourful bags to make her recycled yarns with, so if you have bags of bags in your cupboards, particularly if you live in Australia, she'd love to hear from you. Apparently there is a vortex of them swirling in the Pacific Ocean which is the size of Texas!

I am horrified by that. We really need to stop using those bags in the first place, take your own bag. Mr P is very guilty with bags so I make him take them to the 2nd hand shops, the ones that don't have their own bags made. And if you don't have a suitable bag for shopping - make one. A good way to show off those lovely thrifted fabrics you've been hoarding, and if your skills or time don't allow for that then god knows there is no shortage of amazing crafters out there who will make you an incredible, fun, stylish or kooky bag of your own. And you'd be suporting individual makers. I love the thought of everyone at the supermarket having different bags.

I remember making one for my mum when I was about 16. We lived in a town with a lot of small minded people and my mum used to get hacked off with their attitudes at times, so I made here a duffle bag which had some funky (well, it was the 80's) pattern painted on it. But... if you slung it at a certain angle revealed the words 'what have you and this bag got in common? you're both full of shit'. Ok, a bit rude, but bear in mind this was a place where the post office wouldn't let her have 10 stamps because there were only 10 left. Confused? Well, if they let her have them there'd be none for anyone else. Made sense to the woman behind the counter who got nasty when my mum pointed out she was obliged to sell them. I think she got 2 stamps.