Lest You Think I Only Obsess About Running

I obsess about many things. Case in point, this musing, crafted a couple of weeks ago.

***

Partner has these two old polo shirts. Once upon a time, we tie-dyed them with pale blue circles and lines to freshen them up a bit. Very pretty. But now they’re stained up, mostly because he used them as gardening shirts. Have you ever tried to wash banana sap out of clothes? Seriously.

The integrity of the fabric is still good, and since they’re extra-large shirts, they offer up large swathes to work with. I wondered what I could do with them.

Then I read an article about Whole Foods Markets. Apparently they’re not going to use plastic grocery bags anymore, instead offering customers the choice between recycled paper bags and 99-cent canvas bags.

Idea.

I took apart a plastic grocery bag at its heat sealed seams and examined its architecture. It has a folded pleat down each side, from handle to bottom that allows the bag to be folded flat and then expand volume-wise to hold stuff.

I cut out the sleeves and the collar of one of the shirts. (I know from previous experience that I can make rather cute underwear for myself from a pair of his sleeves. And the kids love to play with the collars, so until I come up with some clever redeployment of them, into the dress-up bin they go). This left me with the front and back of the shirt. The front already bore a general resemblance to the dismantled grocery bag, so I trimmed things up, folded things just so, seamed the bottom and handle tops, and sort of hemmed the remaining exposed top edge. Voila. Free reusable grocery bag. Slightly larger than the plastic ones from our grocer and prestained.

Shirt A (still a shirt) and Shirt B (now a grocery bag) hanging in the grapefruit tree.

Comments

[Drythe]

Wow. I'm truly very impressed. Will you come decorate our new apartment for me? I think I came without that gene.

[eglentyne]

Drythe, if you don't mind a decoration scheme made up of old clothes, I'll be right over. ;)