Plarning the winter away

'Plarning'.....seems like a typo, I know. It's not some kind of weird sledding, or a form or exotic dance, but crocheting with plarn!   That is a name for plastic yarn, a great use of plastic milk bags.   Here in Ontario, milk comes in milk bags....4 litres of milk in 3 individual plastic bags sold in 1 larger bag.  It's kind of complicated, and really unusual compared to the plastic milk jugs in BC, but, hey, it's great!   I was introduced to this by a couple of women who spoke at the Peterborough Guild of Arts and Crafts.  Anne Downey and Nancy Bailey shared with us about their mission work going on in Haiti. It captured my heart and I knew that I wanted to be involved.  Although their work covers a variety of different efforts, I'm focusing on making the plastic sleeping mats used in hospitals.  This requires a huge network of people: collecting the milk bags and cleaning them, cutting them in strips, looping them together to make long strands of plastic yarn and then crotcheting them into mats, or in some cases, hand bags.   Then the mats are transported to Haiti and are a wonderful blessing to the people there. Apparently the bags are already treated with a chemical that deters bugs (this is helpful for us here in Canada, too) and they are thick, so the scorpions can't sting through them!!  My wonderful husband is just as involved as I am, spending countless hours looping the bag strips together and rolling them in balls.  The colours from the different brands and kinds of milk make for a wonderful, fun display on the mats.  If you are interested in more information, please see the website at: http://www.nwhcm.ca/mats4haiti.htm