repurposed: t-shirts to shopping bags

You know I'm all about saving a buck. And the environment. But I'm also about making my life easier. I'd be lying if I said that the reason I wanted to make these bags was because I'm earth friendly and want to decrease my carbon footprint. That's part of it, but it's really just an added benefit. What I really wanted to do was get rid of those ever-loving grocery bags stashed in my laundry room. Sure you need them occasionally for mini-trash cans or something, but really...do I need eleventy billion of them? No. And do I remember to recycle them at the grocery store? No. Also, they're hanging above Rudy's food bowl and one day they shifted and it scared the BEJEEZUS out of him and it took several seconds for his little paws to gain traction on the floor to high-tail it out of there. Then it took him three days to eat in there without company/protection. THAT was funny. But not worth the collection.

And I digress. Bottom line: I hate plastic grocery bags.

I saw this in blog land somewhere, a long long time ago. Now that I'm semi-comfortable with a sewing machine, I decided to give it a go. It's so easy, I really might turn all of our t-shirts into shopping bags. Take that, bag boy. I don't need your stinkin' annoying bags. Paper or plastic? How about cotton? Thankyouverymuch.

First, turn the shirt inside-out and cut out the sleeves and collar.

You'll only be sewing along the bottom of the shirt, so pin it. Or don't, whatevs.

[PS: every single one of the shirts I used was from Carolina (the REAL Carolina). Every one was from a Campus Crusade Hoe Down. It's easy to figure out a couple's history by looking in their t-shirt drawer, eh??]

Oh, and make sure you have good company. Here's Rudiger thinking, "This bag looks a lot less scary than those other bags."

Once you sew those babies up, you're ready to go! Your arm holes are the straps!

Eaaaaaaaasy day.

And yes, I know there's a plastic bag INSIDE the tshirt bag in the picture above. That's only because the blueberry lady at the farmer's market looked at me funny each time (x3) that I told her I didn't need a bag. So I took it anyway. And it's too small to do anything with, of course.

But the organic man said my bag was "really cool." We're besties now.