A grandmother has come up with a novel idea to make the most of 5p plastic bags – by knitting them together to create HOLDALLS.
Pat King, 67, began knitting together cheap supermarket shopping bags so that she can use then again and again.
The idea came to the retiree when her and husband, Brian, were on holiday in Florida and the pocket on their hotel pool table gave way – and now she always takes her super-strong holdalls to the shops.
She said: “We needed a replacement pocket and I had already seen on TV that someone had started crocheting bags, so I decided to do one for the pool table.
“My husband worked out how to make the plastic into essentially a long piece of wool and it worked a treat.
“Then I thought I can make bags out of this – they’re great and really handy.”
Pat, a former school teacher from Buckden, Cambridgeshire, has now made three holdalls – an purple one for shopping at M&Co, orange for Sainsbury’s and a third from Walmart bags that she made in America.
She said: “I’ve been using them when I go shopping.
“I’ve lined them with felt and cotton and they’re actually very strong.”
Pat, who won a craft competition in her local village show said that she is worried that charging bags will mean her production will slow down.
She said: “I make my friends collect them but now I’m worried I’m not going to get so many.
“I had to actually go to a shop and ask for some more bags.
“When I finished it, I went back to the shop to show them – they were really impressed.”
Pat said that it only takes her ten hours to finish a super-strong bag and uses just 15 bags in the process.
To make them, Pat cuts the top and bottom off the bags and then slices them into strips to make one long piece of plastic.
The grandmother-of-five said: “I often raise money for charity so I might start selling them.
“I give talks at my local Women’s Institute and show people how to recycle things, so I might put this on my list.”
