Sunday, April 22, 2007

Happy Earth Day!!

I awoke in the night with a new project flashed onto my brain. I've been hearing so many talk about buying cloth bags to carry around (instead of using plastic), and so many cloth bag designs have gone through my mind. And yesterday my mil was asking if I want yet another shipment of her discarded t-shirts... well! the two came together and at 4 this morning I made a t-shirt bag. T-shirts are AMAZING inventions, really. You can cut into the shirt and you don't have to sew the cut, because it won't fray! So, two designs came to mind. First, you sew the bottom of the t-shirt closed, then you decide if you want your handles right in the middle at the top, like this:

whereupon you just sew the sleeves shut, cut the neck a bit wider depending on how big it already is (you have to be able to quickly get your groceries in that hole), make a handle size cut either side of the neck (try to make them line-up) and voila! You have a new cloth grocery bag! It's stretchy, holds a lot, and folds down to a nice neat size to store in your handbag or your backpack or your vehicle. So cool! Alternatively, you cut off the arms, and use the armholes for the handles, open the neck up a bit and you have a slightly different shape of bag (these handles are more like the ones on a plastic bag). I tried mine out this morning and couldn't believe how much i could fit into this one I made from one of my mum's old lovely t-shirts! You could start collecting thrifted t-shirts now to make really fun, easy, cheap, environmentally-friendly birthday gifts for all your friends and family.

Let me know if my description isn't clear. I love my new bag!

3 comments:

Andrea said...

I want to see it and touch it. Bozenka just promised me that she would start using cloth bags if I made some for her. I want to make her a bunch.

Anonymous said...

oh this is so cool. a bit confused on the first handle idea [maybe a close up photo of yours]. i must try it out, thanks for sharing. x c

Abby said...

i really like your blogs . . . thanks for some really great earth friendly ideas . . . also, speaking of tshirts, i read a knitting book (mason dixon knitting) which has a lot of really cool ideas including slicing up old tshirts into loops, connecting the loops and knitting them with big needles into rugs and mats. i think it's a great way to reuse shirts and it was also suggested that kids can participate in the connecting of the loops step in the process :)