TUTORIAL: reusable grocery bag

In honor of the plastic bag ban, this little project can be completed in less than 30 minutes.

This weekend I got to demo at the Urban Craft Uprising here in Seattle. I had some great turn out and everyone who attended left with a new reuse grocery bag. It was really fun interacting with people of different skills levels. I am always interested in how people react to being creative. Some people really want clearly defined instruction, some people don’t want to hear any instruction and will take off on their own easily. I always try to tell people to think less about it being perfect and focus more on the creation. Not always and easy task.

Anyway, we all had fun and my sewing machine escaped unscathed. So here is the tutorial for that demo. This is my first tutorial so please let me know if my directions are unclear, or you have any issues.

Some notes: This project works great with those thick cotton t shirts you get for participating in any number of social events. The less Lycra the better, so lower quality tee’s with less give work great.

At this point you don’t need to turn your shirt inside out if don’t mind your stitches showing at the bottom of your bag. If you want a little fancy fringe you can leave the extra fabric at the bottom of the shirt and cut vertical strips up from the bottom to the stitched bottom. That’s it.

Side note: As I was writing this post a Washington Environmental Volunteer came by with a petition to expand the ban on plastic bags to the entire state. Plastic bags are mistaken for food for sea-life when they make their way into the ocean. Last year a beached Grey Whale in Washington was found with a huge mass of plastic bags just hanging out in his stomach. So let’s do this for the Earth and do it for the whales!