Shopping Bags or Something from Nothing

Today's post is about this kind of sewing that must be done, rather that the sewing that we all wish we could be doing. It's about the utilitarian sewing that fills most of my sewing days. Although, I'd much rather be dreaming up a brand new cocktail dress, what really needs to be done is the mending, and the hemming, and the remaking of worn clothing and the making of utility shopping bags.

My shopping bags get used and abused and they wear out. I needed new ones before I began losing my weekly shopping in drips and drabs through holes that had become too big to mend. 

This is a stash project; a perfect excuse to use fabric that just wasn't right for the original purpose. I had some brown denim-like material, that didn't wash well and was too stiff to use as a winter skirt. That's the brown stuff. I also had miles of leftover bias-cut quilting cotton from a mistake I made in arithmetic when finishing a quilt. That's the green stuff. Finally I had a good handful of stitch witchery left over from my Ikea curtains that was the exact width of the bias tape. That stuff is unseen on these photos.

I measured up my old shopping bags before tossing them directly in the trash. I simply transferred these measurements plus a seam allowance to the brown fabric and cut on the straight lines. I first hemmed the top of the bag front and back as well as the piece that was cut for the sides and bottom.

Next I estimated the strap length as twice the bag height plus the handle length. I cut four of these for each bag. I then used my stitch-witchery to "glue" two of the straps together. I edge stitched each strap before attaching it the bag. This produced a strong, sturdy strap with not much stretch. I top-stitched each strap the the bag from and back

After the strap was in place, I sewed the continuous sides and bottom piece to the front and back. To make this as easy as possible I placed wrong sides together and sewed leaving the seam allowance showing to the right side. This gave me a finished interior to the shopping bag. Finally, I used some more bias tape to enclose the raw seam on the outside. This second stitching of the bias to this seam gave me a strong seam and a finished look to the bag, both inside and out.

So, two shopping bags and some more space in my stash. Is it time to go fabric shopping again?