30 March 2008

A New Life For An Old Shirt

Anyone remember this?

I've been meaning to do this quick project for months and have been waiting for my husband to go through his t-shirts for ones I could use. Figuring he'd get to that about, oh, a quarter to never I bit the bullet and traipsed over to the Goodwill store while Flynn was at a birthday party yesterday afternoon. My son accompanied me. A couple of bucks later we walked out with a fair assortment of heavy weight t-shirts ready to be made into handy shopping bags (Evan's favorite, that he claimed for his own, has a bat on it). We chose XL-sized t-shirts, but any size will do.

After a good washing and a trip through the dryer, the shirts were ready to go. First I turned the shirts inside out and pinned the bottom seams together.

I then sewed the seams together. I used a zig-zag stitch, sewing the seams twice for added strength.
To trim off the neck band I used an upturned 9" pasta bowl and my rotary cutter. If you do not have a rotary cutter, use a fabric pen to trace around the bowl and then use regular scissors to cut the neck band off.Evan was begging to help, so I let him cut off the sleeves to make the shopping bag's handles. We did not cut the seam joining the sleeve to the rest of the shirt, cutting just to the edge.

Turn the whole thing right side out and in about 10 minutes you have a new bag to hold plenty of shopping.

And I no longer have any excuses not to have my own shopping bags with me since I've already packed my new stash in the car.

5 comments:

Leighann of Multi-Minding Mom said...

Looks great! That's on my to-do list. But since the list is a mile long, well see when they actually get done!

Probably a little easier for you to whip one out since your sewing machine is set up.

Jenna said...

That is awesome! I will find the time to do it!

You could make them and sell them at the farmer's market!

Anonymous said...

That is so neat! I'm going to have to learn how to use a sewing machine (and steal my mothers for a while).

Anonymous said...

far out! i never saw that before. makes more sense than to keep buying the bags at trader joes! thanx craft girl!

Lisa said...

Wow, kudos on the great shopping bags! What a fun idea.