Girl Scout Sweat Shop

One of the moms in my troop donated a HUGE roll of upholstery fabric to the troop. Her mom got it to recover a sofa. The sofa never got recovered, and she was looking for a good home for some wayward fabric. Our first badge this year is going to be the eco-action patch, which has do with trying to save the environment. One of the options was to find out about alternatives to plastic grocery bags, so I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to have the girls make their own reusable fabric shopping bags. I've got the handy tutorial that I worked up this summer, and the bags come together in about 10 minutes of sewing time. There was enough fabric on the roll to cut out 16 bags! We'll practice some of our sewing machine skills at the same time, and warm up for the quilting project that we have scheduled for November. While I was at it, I dug through my box of donated fabric and pulled out the rest of the heavier weight fabric to cut out 12 more bags. Rotary cutting is so therapeutic for me, I could just slice fabric into little bits all day long. I'm not exactly sure what we will all do with 28 fabric shopping bags, but I've been mulling over trying to sell them at a Girl Scout leader meeting with a flier inserted about the evils of plastic bags. If we sell them for $5 each, we will have enough money to pay for most of the batting for the nursing home quilts.
I also found a really easy tutorial from Crazy Mom Quilts that uses a tuna can to make an adorable pin cushion. I'm going to have my girls do this as part of the sewing badge, and they can practice fancy machine stitching on the fabric that makes up the sides of the can.
I was at a school coordinator training session all day, and it was just so long. It's all good information, I just have trouble sitting still for that long when I have a never ending "to do" list running through my head. I was disciplined enough to get up early and get my long run in before the training, so at least I could feel smug about already having 10 miles in for the day.
I don't have anything officially scheduled for tomorrow. There is a free symphony concert that is going on for the kids. Every so often it is good to have them do something culturally enriching. They have a petting zoo after when the kids get to try out all sorts of different instruments. Last year we took the whole Girl Scout troop and it was a lot of fun. So I should try to talk everyone into that, but my main agenda item is getting my OHR quilt top put together. All of the blocks are done, and they spent a week laid out on the dining room floor. Then the housekeeper was coming on Thursday and I had to pick everything up and put it away so she could clean the floor. Now it's partially reassembled, but I'd better get it together before the Girl Scout meeting on Monday or I'll have to start over again.

Fabric Grocery Bag Tutorial -- New and Improved!

I based this pattern on a reusable shopping bag I bought at Wal-mart. It seems to be a little bigger than the bag that comes from Publix, our local chain grocery store. You might want to take a peek at the bags that come from your local store to see what size they are. Otherwise, start with just one bag, and take it to your local grocery to see how it works. My local Wal-mart cashier was concerned that the handles might not fit over the metal brackets that hold the bags open for filling. They turned out to be fine, but it is worth checking into before you make 20 bags that don't work well at your local market.

Step 1: Choosing the Fabric.
You will need fabric that is somewhat sturdy. I used leftover home decorator fabric. Indoor/Outdoor fabric, canvas or denim would also be good choices. You will need about 1/2 of a yard per bag. 17 inches to be exact, but 1/2 a yard should give you insurance for raveling edges and such. This is assuming you are using home decor fabric which is at least 53 inches wide. If your fabric is 45 inches wide, you will need 3/4 of a yard.

Step 2: Cutting the Fabric.
You will need 5 pieces of fabric total. Piece A forms the front, bottom and back of the bag. It is 14 inches wide by 36 inches long. Piece B forms the two sides of the bag. They are both 14 by 8.5 inches. You should be able to get all three these from a single 14 inch cut. If you are using 45 inch fabric, you will need to cut a second piece at 8.5 inches in order to get both side pieces. Piece C forms the handles. They are 3 inches by 23 inches. Again, both of these should come from the same strip of fabric. Your handles will be slightly shorter if you are using 45 inch fabric, just cut it in half and it will be close enough.

Step 3: Preparing the Handles.
Take a handle piece C. Laying it flat with the wrong side up, bring both sides to the middle and crease to form a tube with the right sides out. You may iron it flat if you like. Use a zig zag stitch straight down the middle to hold the two sides together and cover the raw edges. If you overlap the edges slightly, it make is harder to miss if you sew a little crooked. Repeat for the second handle.

Step 4: Connecting the First End.
This is the tricky step. You want to connect three sides of piece B to piece A. This needs to be done in one continuous seam. In order to accomplish this, you will need to pivot at each corner using a needle down position.
Start by laying piece B at the top right hand corner of piece A. With right sides together, sew straight down the side, stopping one seam allowance short of the end. Stop and needle down if your machine does not do this automatically.

While the needle is down, readjust the fabric, bringing the bottom of the side piece over to meet the edge of piece A. Depending on how stiff your fabric is, you may need to fiddle with the corner, or even cut a little divot in order to allow the fabric to turn the corner. Continue to sew down the bottom side, stopping one seam allowance short of the end. Pivot again, and sew to the end of the third side.
You will have a U shaped tube connected to one side of the bag. The top of the bag may not be even on the last side you sewed, depending on what seam allowance you used. I used a quarter inch, and this made the end of piece A about half an inch too long on the end. If you knew ahead of time exactly what seam allowance you wanted to use, you could make your piece A shorter by one seam allowance and it should turn out perfect. I like to adjust my seam allowance depending on the fabric I'm using, so I prefer to leave piece A a little long and trim it after I sew on the first side piece. When you get to the end, just trim off whatever is left so that the edges are nice and even.

Step 5: Connecting the Second Side
Side two goes on exactly the same as side one. When you are done with both side pieces, you'll have a 5 sided rectangular shape that is open on the top.

Optional Step 6: Finishing the Edges
If your fabric seems likely to fray, or if you think you might be washing your bag quite a bit, you might want to finish the raw edges. Just keep the bag wrong side out and zig zag over the edges. This is assuming you don't have a fancy serger machine, which I don't.


Step 7: Finishing the Top and Attaching the Handles.
Keeping the bag wrong side out, fold the top down so that you have about one inch of overlap all around. I pin this step, it helps to hold everything together. After the top is pinned, lay it out flat and pin the handles down, about 2.5 inches from each side. Make sure the bottom of the handles are even with the bottom of the top hem.
Now carry the whole thing to the sewing machine. Starting at a corner and using a zig zag stitch, sew along the bottom of the hem, covering the raw edges, and connecting the handles at the same time.
When you get back to where you started, stop and needle down. Switch to a straight stitch and pivot the bag, sew straight up the corner, stopping near the top of the bag. Needle down and pivot again, just below the top edge of the bag. Sew around the bag again just below the top edge, securing the handles and finishing the top edge.Turn your bag right side out and poke out the corners. Pleat the bottom so that it will fold flat, and tuck the handles inside for storage. You should be able to store quite a few of them in a very small amount of space. Stash them in your car so they are handy for your next unexpected trip to the grocery store!

Grocery Bags

I've been trying to get away from using plastic bags at the grocery store for a while now. I had a couple of the reusable bags that they sell, but never enough for an entire shopping trip. I didn't want to stock up on them, because I kept thinking about how easy it would be to make my own. I tried a pattern made from tracing around a plastic bag that had a cute little pocket on the front, but it was labor intensive and floppy. I kept thinking that home decorator fabric would stand up better. I have a bunch leftover from the sewing frenzy that happened when we moved into our new house three years ago. So I took one of the bags from the grocery store and made some rough measurements, did a little math, and started to sew. Nine bags later, I think I can handle an entire shopping trip. And best of all, my shopping bags match my throw pillows!
Today was the last day of school for the kids. Tomorrow we are off to the Nickelodeon Hotel to celebrate everyones collective birthdays. The kids are pretty excited, even though I've glossed over the details. They've been excited enough about school ending without adding to the drama. They all rushed to their rooms as soon as they got home from school and started packing swim suits.
In addition to my 9 shopping bags, I also managed to get 6 loads of laundry done today and bake my birthday cake. I kept thinking surely someone would make me a cake, but it never happened. We tend to deemphasize adult birthdays around here, but you can usually count on at least getting a cake! So rather than being cheated entirely out of my birthday I made my own cake. Pound cake with fresh strawberries and whipped cream. It was delicious!