This year I decided to promote a "charity" knitting project to benefit Mother Earth. In this project, you get to keep the item you knit (unless of course you want to share with someone else, which is very cool too).

The basic idea is to knit or crochet and pledge to use weekly at least one cotton (or linen, etc.) grocery bag to replace plastic bags (or other types) you might currently be getting at the grocery store or other places you shop. I have written a detailed blog about the concept behind the project as well as the mathematical possibilities as more and more people make the pledge and do the deed.

I even designed a knitted grocery bag that replicates the design and dimensions of a standard plastic shopping bag -- only because it is knitted it holds much, much more so it really replaces even more than one bag per week. I call my bag the 1Bag, and the pattern is available for free.

There is also an information page about the basic construction of my 1Bag so that, if you choose, you can easily alter the pattern with other stitch patterns. Dress it up, dress it down ... just make at least one and bring it with you everywhere. You could personally replace as many as 2,600 plastic bags with each and every 1Bag you knit. Wouldn't that be awesome!

And what a great gift to surprise Mother Earth with.

Please pass this concept around to an many other people as you can. You don't have to use my pattern, there are many, many knitted and crocheted bag patterns out there. The main thing is, get the word out and get the bags made and get them being used reguarly and always increasing in numbers. Over the next five years we needlecrafters could make a huge, huge difference.

~firefly