Turn Your Unused T-Shirts into Reusable Grocery Bags

Reusable grocery bags have gained popularity in recent months due to rising environmental concerns over using plastic shopping bags. Making reusable grocery bags from unwanted T-shirts is a great way to address this environmental concern. It also gives you a way to recycle extra t-shirts.

To make a regular T-shirt cloth bag, you will simply turn the t-shirt inside out and sew up the bottom. Then the sleeves are cut off the T-shirt, leaving the seam on the cloth bag. This craft is finished by cutting open the neck, making a deep cloth bag that's good for lightweight groceries. However, just by sacrificing a few inches of bag depth, you can make reusable grocery bags that have twice the strength of regular reusable grocery bags.

Materials needed for the reusable grocery bags T-shirt recycling craft:

Old T-shirts,

Scissors,

Sewing kit.

Preparations:

For this craft, select the T-shirts that you want to recycle into reusable grocery bags. T-shirts without a design work best for the craft, but T-shirts with a design recycle well provided you make a couple adjustments. The bottom half of the T-shirt and the sleeves should be free of unsightly stains or yellowing, and the cloth should be strong enough to sustain continued use as a cloth bag. A way to test the cloth is to gently pull the cloth. If it rips, the t-shirt is too old to recycle into a cloth bag. Longer T-shirts tend to make deeper reusable grocery bags. If the T-shirt is sleeveless, two additional pieces of cloth rectangles four inches wide by fifteen inches long will be needed for handles. Another way to obtain the cloth is to cut the sleeves from another T-shirt by turning it into a sleeveless shirt.

Folding and sewing the cloth bag:

Start out by laying the T-shirt out flat. Cut the sleeves off of the T-shirt, cutting around the sleeve one side at a time. Cut off the seam with the sleeve, you will need it there more than on the shirt. Set aside the sleeves for later on in the craft. Adding pieces of cloth to "extend" shorter T-shirts make for deeper reusable grocery bags. To do this, cut open the top of the T-shirt and add the cloth. Sew the armholes shut to keep groceries out of what will be the inside of the two layers of the cloth bag. Reaching into the T-shirt through the neck, grab the bottom of the shirt and draw it inside the T-shirt upwards until the T-shirt is folded in half inwards. Line it up so that both sides of the bottom are even with each other and as far up that they touch the shoulders. The bottom of the T-shirt does not need to come up all the way past the collar. Now sew across the T-shirt, sewing so that the thread goes through all four layers of the cloth while sewing the bottom of the T-shirt together a quarter of an inch from the edge. For T-shirts with designs, keep the shirt right side in and the design will end up inside the layers of the finished reusable grocery bags. When sewing the cloth bag, sew just above the hem of the bottom of the shirt to "hide" it in the finished craft.

Add the handles to the reusable grocery bags craft:

Take the sleeves and cut them open, cutting alongside the seam at the bottom of the sleeve. Spread out the sleeve upside down and fold the cut edge over to make a rectangle. Fold this rectangle over itself. Line up the sleeve so that the hem is face down upon the cloth bag facing away from the handle for the best appearance. Sew through the layers of the cloth handle making sure that the sewing goes through all the cloth, as the sleeve hem tends to be a bit shorter than the cut end of the sleeve cloth. Then repeat with the cloth from the other sleeve for the other handle. Flip the cloth bag upside-down and sew on the other ends of the handles to the cloth bag. This sewing needs to be real strong so the reusable grocery bags can withstand usage. Now sew a few stitches across the middle of the handles. This sewing will keep them from unfolding. Turn the cloth bag right side out and your cloth bag is complete.

The homemade reusable grocery bags will serve you for years. They can be machine-washed whenever needed, and if the sewing starts to come undone from use; your reusable grocery bags are easy to repair with a handy sewing kit. Although double layered reusable grocery bags are stronger than the single-layered T-shirt shopping bags, heavy groceries should be loaded into the canvas reusable grocery bags or carried by hand. These environmentally friendly reusable grocery bags will save you money on commercially made reusable grocery bags while saving plastic shopping bags and the environment.