Upcycled Grocery Bag

This past August, the city we live in stopped allowing stores to use plastic grocery bags effectively forcing it's inhabitants to go green whenever they shop and while most of these stores sell reusable bags to hold your purchases it's a quick process to make several of your own to use instead.

A couple of days ago I was sitting at my computer, pinning my little heart out, (oh how I love Pinterest...) when I came across this great tutorial from Between The Lines for a grocery bag made out of an old t-shirt.


We have LOTS of old t-shirts at our house so I rummaged around and found one to use. The fabric of this particular shirt is on the thin side and I think a thicker one would definitely produce a stronger bag for things like produce and eggs and such. Mine would be fine for bread, lettuce, paper towels...things that are on the lighter side.

The directions are pretty straight forward and there's even tutorial links for French and box seams if you're not sure how to do one or both (like me).





I also really like that slits are cut vertically which was SO much easier to do than making horizontal cuts like some others I've seen.



To reinforce the handles a bit I added some ruffles using a few strips of unbleached muslin I had on hand.



Kind of looks like a tank top. Actually, without closing up the bottom it would be cute to wear over a swim suit. Go rummaging through your drawer and pull out some of those t-shirts you don't wear anymore but have been holding on to for some reason. Save one or two for fabric flowers and then transform the others into grocery bags to keep in the car with you. If your city stops using plastic grocery bags, you'll be ready!

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