I read the instructions with a certain amount of nostalgia..."turn your plastic bags into plarn"..."using garter stitch, knit five separate pieces"..."sew them together using an embroidery needle and a piece of plarn". The object being thus constructed (from a selection of dismembered plastic bags) was a clutch...but in the depths of my memory I recalled a pre-teen plarn project...the hours spent cutting black garbage bags into strips...knitting the lengths of plastic into the shapes I desired...the finished design...an over-sized fisherman's hat.

The end result was...interesting. Strangely hard and knobbly it's main virtue was being 100% waterproof...it's downfall, the inability to exist near an open flame.