New Textiles 2011

Looking to find a second life for some of my trash, I was inspired by the many sustainable craft blogs that are out there, and wanted to try making my own yarn out of plastic bags, or plarn, as it is affectionately called.  However, there were two key features of the plarn that made it quite unpleasant to me:

1. Plarn when woven or knitted tends to produce a fabric which looks cheap (at least to me) and has an “artificial” hand feel.  It is rough and uninviting to touch.
2. Plarn when spun took on a quality like coarse rope.

Hence, I came up with the idea to make a hybrid plarn with materials that would make it feel softer and look more aesthetically pleasing.  I wanted the final yarn to be similar to the more “traditional” yarns of cotton or wool, while simultaneously upcycling some of what would otherwise end up in the landfill.

During the week, I experimented with combinations of plastic bag with wool, bamboo,  and conductive yarns like aluminum and copper. I liked the feel of the wool and bamboo, but the bamboo hybrid had issues with the final yarn unraveling as the bamboo staple fibers were too short and inconsistent.  I decided on wool as it offered the most color choices, and the combination of wool fibers and plastic appeared to be the strongest.  After making some wool-plastic hybrids, I decided that the simple combination of wool and plastic worked and felt fine, but looked rather dull, so I added additional colors and some aluminum fibers to make it look shinier and more appealing.  The end result is a 2 ply hybrid of plarn: the first ply of plastic bag a a little green wool, and the second ply of a very thin ply of green wool, black wool and aluminum fibers. The plastic bag to wool+yarn proportion is about 30%, but this can be increased to 50% without a drop in the quality (texture and look) of the yarn. The texture of the final hybrid plarn is much softer, and offers an interesting mix of colors, which I enjoy. As a bonus, the yarn also conducts some electricity due to the aluminum fibers.

Properties:

Diameter:  2090-3120 micrometers
Total Length of Yarn:  2.6 meters
Ply: 2 ply
Fiber Length: plastic bag- continuous filament, wool- 140 mm, aluminum- 88 mm
Twist Direction: S twist
Twist: 9 turns per inch
Conductivity: 2.8 ohms per cm
Denier/Tex: 10568 denier / 1174 g/km – I weighed the yarn in grams, then took (weight of yarn in grams)/(length of yarn in meters) multiplied by 9000m for denier and 1000m for tex.
Yarn Size: Elongation: 110% – I measured 1 inch of yarn, and stretched it between pliers until it broke. Then, I measured the final length and took the formula (final length – initial length)/(initial length)*100%.
Elastic Recovery: ~50% – I stretched 1 inch of yarn to 1.2 inches, and it bounced back to 1.1 inches.
Absorbency: 190% – I weighed the yarn dry, and then wet, and then took (weight of wet yarn – weight of dry yarn)/(weight of dry yarn)*100%