T-shirt Grocery Bags

DH was going through his closet finally-moving winter stuff out and tossing some ratty old turtlenecks and long sleeve T-shirts. I looked at the pile and thought...hmm, grocery shopping bags?

These have to be the easiest bags ever! Sorry I didn't think to take pictures but here's what I did. I simply turned the shirt inside out, cut with my rotary cutter just below the sleeves, pinned and sewed with an overlock stitch the bottom seam of the bag. (If I had been using my old machine, I just would have sewed the seam and then zigzagged on the cut edge.) Body of the bag-finished..you can see on this pix how nice the top of the bag is finished-that's because its the bottom of the shirt! LOL!

Then I cut a strip from a different shirt (one in even worse shape!-how does he get those holes?) for the handles...one strip was enough for both handles. I cut off the seams and had my two handles. I ironed on iron-on interfacing so there wouldn't be too much stretch in the handles, folded the cut edges in towards the center, folded it all in half lengthwise and sewed right on the edge of the double fold. Added the handles to the bag body and that was it! A finished grocery bag!

DH is a pretty big guy so all the shirts were either Large or X-large...this bag came out huge. I'm not sure how well it will work as a grocery bag (it may be too big!) but it's great for holding all the other grocery bags!
I'm linking to Finished for Friday at Lit and Laundry, Sew and Tell at Amylouwho and Frugal Friday at the Shabby Nest. Hop on over there and see the terrific finishes for this week...lots more interesting stuff than grocery bags I'm sure!

Tutorial: A quick and easy fabric grocery bag

I had this 1/2 yard piece of fabric sitting in the closet and thought this would make a great grocery bag! Here's how I did it... its really quick and easy! (click on the pictures to enlarge)

Cut 3" from the selvage edges and trim up the edges...

Fold 1/2" in on both of the long sides of the 3" cut offs...

Fold the piece in half and take it to the sewing machine. Sew 1/4" from the two- fold folded edges and then sew again right up against the fold.

Fold the raw edges of the short sides under about 3/4" and sew that down. Voila! A handle! I did it again and had 2 handles.

Refold the big piece of fabric with right sides touching and the wrong side up.

and fold down 1" from the edge (the edge I'd cut the 3" off ) on both sides...

and sew these hems down.

Put pins in the sides and sew up the side seams.

Pull on the bottom corners to make pointy triangles, measure 2" from the point and draw a line.

Sew on the drawn line.

Repeat for the other side, turn the bag right side out and press.

Find the middle of the top of the bag, put a pin in to mark the center and measure 2 1/2" from the pin and pin a handle in place.

Sew the handle on by sewing a "square" all round the bottom of the handle and then diagonally across. Done!

My new grocery bag...cute, reusable and it won't tear easily like those funny paper fabric bags...I'm going green and you can too!