Create Plenty Market Bags, Re-Use Style

I have long been a fan of this great project that I first saw from Martha years ago. Basically, you can use an old t-shirt (with an image or not) to create a supper handy plastic bag style market tote. These are great and I have many. Talk about a way to use those oversized Dollywood and Oregon Country Fair T’s that are hard to part with, but not so wearable.

Here is another re-use style bag that I made a few weeks ago for my little girls. I am forever getting nice-ish quality sewn totes with unattractive images on them. Like the kind sheet sets come in, or a promotion from a trade show, you know the ones. Anyway, I just used some of Anna Joyce’s tecniques plus a little free-motion embroidery on the Bernina 330 to create this. But what about when the image on the bag is big? too big for a little flower/sailboat/chicken scene? Try adding a large pocket like this tutorial and embelishing that! Oh Design*Sponge, you are a crafty lot.

If you want to take it a steep further, you can join in a little project for the folks over at Create Plenty. Modern Domestic is hosting a tote-bag sewing event Wednesday, October 27th from 12-3pm that is FREE. The bags will be sold as a fund-raiser for this awesome organization and the sewing time for work on the bags is no charge!

Tote bags are so useful; even with them stashed in every possible location, I still find myself embarrassingly with out in times of need (think impromptu grocery store trips). I should really make loads of both types to place in my car, every purse I have, the strollers and attached to my bike. Then, just then, would I have enough.