If you sew much, you wind up with a lot of small pieces of fabric. Some are too small to do much of anything with them, though I have made some stuffed critters out of those. Some are just too small to make *clothes* out of, and that’s what I used up here.
I decided to go with re-usable grocery bags. It’s not that I feel like I’m saving the earth or anything. I’m not trying to make some political statement or shame other people into bringing their own bags; I don’t care what other folks choose to do as long as the plastic bags don’t become roadside litter. I do have what seems like an obscene number of plastic grocery bags waiting to become small trash bag liners, so I really don’t need any more of those, and I feel bad throwing them out and not re-using them…but I’m out of space to store them.
The pattern I used is McCall’s 8259 from 2000. I got it from Pattern Rescue, as a trade. Oddly, I was attracted to it because of the bear backpack pattern. I can’t see myself actually *making* that, but you never know.
In addition to the bags above, I also made this one:
It’s lined with plain muslin, and it’s really too nice for a grocery bag. I’m calling it a beach tote, though I don’t ever go to the beach, really. I would be *so* pissed if it got messed up from groceries, and I don’t really want it knocking around in the car trunk or the back of the truck, so I’m keeping it aside from that purpose.
The denim one is made from pants legs from cut-offs, the blue plaid one is from a very small remnant from Jo-Anne, the pink and orange ones are scraps left from thrift store fabric cuts after making a garment, and the tote bag is part of a skirt from Heritage 1981 that I bought on sale. The skirt is still around — it just had so much fabric, all gathered at the waist, that I altered it due to unflatterning-ness and wound up with the two panels I used to make the tote. These are all unlined. The inside seams are variously french seamed or overlocked. The blue one has a narrow hem to finish the top edge, and the others have double fold bias tape.
I’ve already used three of the bags at the grocery store, and they hold more than the plastic bags. This is fine by me as I usually use the self-checkouts and pack my own bags. They might even prove useful at Costco, but due to the exit inspection procedure, maybe not.
My review of the pattern can be seen here at Pattern Review.
Recent Comments