Friday, June 04, 2010

Pillowcase Shopping Bags

A little something I made for myself recently...pillowcase shopping bags.  I found the wonderfully clear instructions on Spider Woman Knits, and being in need of some new bags, thought I'd give it a whirl.  I had a few vintage pillowcases in my fabric stash, so I dragged them out along with my long-neglected sewing machine and gave it a go.  I'm not an accomplished machine-sewist so my bags probably took me 30 minutes, instead of the 15 that it took Spider Woman.  Still, that's a pretty small investment. 

Each pillowcase is doubled so they're quite sturdy, and the straps are wide so they don't cut into your hand when you're carrying a heavy load.  I packed a few milk jugs into mine to see how they'd fare and they held the weight with ease. 


Garage sale season is upon us, and you should be able to pick up some pillowcases for a pittance.  I really liked that this tutorial uses all of the pillowcase...no scraps left over to add to the fabric stash.  Yay!  They'll wash up better than many of those store brand bags, too.  Double yay!  (besides who wants to advertise for some store when they're shopping, anyway?)


I think they'll be great for shopping, for hitting the farmer's market (does it bother anyone else that some of the farm stands hand out plastic bags?), for the beach, or even as a diaper bag.  I'd love it if you'd let me know if you make one.  Spider Woman even has a Flickr group set up for showing off your bags, here.  So give it a try!

5 comments:

lynn bowes said...

Sweet. Don't ya love remaking something into a useful piece? Sadly, my vintage pillowcases are still on my pillows :: xo

Sonia / COZY MEMORIES said...

hey, these are great !! thanks for sharing the link, I just saved te pdf file ! no doubt that I'll t ry this soon.
I wish you a lovely weekend ahead, we'll be leaving in a couple of hours. xoxo

Kar said...

How clever and cute! Just think of all the colorful bags you can make.

Lisa at lil fish studios said...

Thanks for stopping by, ladies. I was glad I found (finally) an excuse to use these pillowcases. I have two more with embroidered poodles on them that I'm going to have to find a use for. Not sure if they'll be bags or a dress for the girl-child. hmmm.

elis said...

Wonderful! Thanks for thr tuto.
Elis

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