Grandma was the original recycler: Nothing went to waste when she was around

The wind whistled through the pines one evening when thoughts of my Grandma Brush popped into my head. I have no idea why, but memories of Grandma flowed through me. 

In 1960, a cottage was built for Grandma on my parent’s property in Frankfort, Illinois. Grandma Brush was my dad’s mother. She was happy to be able to move out of the city. Finally, she would be able to have animals again. 

The farm animals Grandma wanted were geese. Grandma would wander around the yard with her feathered friends. When she sat, the big gander named Garfield would come up to her to have his head petted. Too bad for us kids, Garfield hated us. 

If my sister or I walked outside, Garfield would come flapping across the yard to attack us. His strong wings would batter our arms and legs, while his beak pinched our skin.  

Grandma couldn’t understand why we hated her darling boy. Garfield was as sweet as could be any time Grandma was around. She would even sit and talk to him. When Grandma returned to her house, that gander would try to kill me ‒ I’m not sure what happened to Grandma’s flock of geese, but I’m sure I celebrated. 

I also remember how Grandma Brush taught me how to knit mittens. We’d sit together in her dark living room, with only one lamp on, and knit from cuff to fingertip. Too bad she never showed me how to put the thumb in place. All my attempts ended with safety pins holding the thumb hole stitches. I think when warm weather arrived, we all ended up outside again. By then it was too nice to sit inside and knit. 

Grandma was an original recycler

Grandma could do more than knit. She crocheted, too. There’s one unusual crochet project that comes to mind today. Grandma would cut strips of plastic from bread bags and turn them into mats for boots and shoes by the door ‒ talk about recycling! 

Nothing went to waste when Grandma was around. She cut around and around bread bags, probably Wonder Bread, until she had enough to create a mat. Sometimes she’d put a couple of these under her feet, to keep the cold away. Other mats were put to good use when we kids came in from outside ‒ you never knew if some goose poo could be clinging to our tennis shoes. Grandma liked her geese, but not that much.  

What in the world is plarn?

I did not learn to make bread bag mats, but today, I checked out plastic bag crocheting on the internet. These days people use plastic store bags, not bread bags so much. There are a number of YouTube videos showing how this can be accomplished.  

I watched a couple of the demonstration videos and thought I’d give it a try myself. 

First, I flattened out six plastic bags and stacked one on another. I then folded them lengthways three times. Cut off the bottoms and handles. To make circular strips, I cut the stack of bags into one-inch pieces. After unraveling all the strips, I could slip one into another and make a long chain. This became the plastic yarn, or as it is called, plarn. There are other ways to cut the plastic into strips, but this is how I did it. 

Eventually, I had a ball of plarn and I could start crocheting.  

The arthritis in my hands had been bothering me, so my big project today was a coaster. Grandma would have been proud, I think. 

Plastic bags had other uses in my youth. For one thing, when boots leaked, plastic bags went over our feet before they went into the boots.   

I continue to think about Grandma and all that she taught me but I don’t think I’ll be crocheting too many plastic coasters. I haven’t worn out the ones I’ve made.  

Susan Manzke, Sunnybook Farm, N8646 Miller Rd, Seymour, WI 54165; sunnybook@aol.com; susanmanzke@gmail.com; www.susanmanzke.net/blog.