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September 17, 2008

Blood Sweat and Tears

A group of friends have been discussing carry along reusable grocery sacks this week and I said I wouldn't be making any unless I could make them both useful and beautiful. A day or so later a light bulb went off and I pulled out some of my larger vintage tablecloths. I've not used these for at least 25 years because I no longer have a big long dining table, I have a small round one.

I looked at a lot of pattern ideas on-line plus deconstructed both plastic and paper bags. I ended up using the handle and attaching idea from Morsbags, French seamed the sides and used the pleating method in Safeway's plastic grocery bags for the bottom.

This tablecloth is a heavy cotton, almost jeans weight, if I were using one of my blouse weight cotton tablecloths I would probably make the handles wrap the whole bag or line it. All in all a fun project and extra glad to be enjoying this beautiful table cloth in a new way. I can get 4 or 5 more out of this tablecloth and I think I will tea dye them for common-sense sake.

Next will be beautiful veggie bags from some old sheer curtain fabric I have left over from my Spirit of the Mesa quilt where I used it for headpiece and feathers.

Midweek thankfulness:
My little Pom is recovered from her bacterial infection.
Autumn leaf colors
I've lost 20 pounds in the last year and a half.

7 comments:

Candace said...

they are beautiful, and you are very clever to have thought of using your unused tablecloths.

BizarreQuilter said...

Oh! I love it! Aren't the vintage/retro fabrics in anyway? Perfect!

The Numismatist said...

What a great idea for old tablecloths! I have been using cloth bags for over four years and love them. Three years I made some for neighbors for the holidays and don't think any have ever been used.

Mine stay in the car at all times and I won't go to the grocery store without them. Also, I won't shop anywhere where there isn't a credit given for bringing my own bags.

Again, wonderful idea!

Sharyn Mallow Woerz said...

Just put the last stitches in. I usually hate shopping in any form, but I can hardly wait to get groceries next time :-) Thanks for stopping by, sure wish my blog was displaying properly... Sharyn

BizarreQuilter said...

It's displaying properly today. Does mine look right to you? Maybe it's a provider thing?

Emsmom said...

Wow! Great bag Sharyn, I couldn't wait to come here from the Janome group to check it out--wonderful idea and I have lots of old tablecloths:) Congrats on the weight loss too, that is a major accomplishment!
Mary

JoAnn ( Scene Through My Eyes) said...

Super neat bags - I love the idea of using the linens that way. I made my re-usable bags of tan canvas - then machine appliqued orphan quilt blocks onto them - just love carrying them to the store.