A few years ago, Marsha Borden favored high quality, organic skeins of wool to create things like knitted hats, mittens, and scarves for her beloved children. Then, one day, she looked at the pile of colorful plastic bags growing in the kitchen of her Guilford home. “I thought, hmmmm, what can I do with these plastic bags? I really kind of became captivated. Maybe I didn’t need to buy expensive new materials like organic cotton to make them. Could I use stuff I already had?” says Borden. Since then she has used those plastic bags to make a skirt, a bustier, handbags, Christmas ornaments, an entire tea set including a tablecloth, and several other works of art that have been shown in art gallery exhibitions next to work by artists with national and international reputations. Borden, in fact, credits her obsession with transforming these plastic bags as being key to her transformation from a mom who makes mittens to a mom who makes mittens and is also an artist and budding activist.