Caution, Irene's Tote May Be Addictive

I am loving this pattern. I love that you use heavier fabric, so no need for lining. I love how fast and easy it comes together. (Still not on the SMS payroll!)

Anyway, the next night after making my first Classic Tote, I made two more! They are both a bit smaller than the original.



This is may be a teacher gift, but I am hurting looking at my bad sewing in this! It's a bit smaller than Irene's original because it was made from... curtains. Yes, another great find from Target's clearance rack, only $3.24. If I pick all the seams out for maximum yardage, I am hoping to get 3 more bags from this one set of curtains! I like the pencil pocket on the front.



Here is a bag for my three-year-old son. I was rummaging through the stash, thinking he wasn't paying attention, but when I pulled this fabric out, he said, "I want that one." Made over from a little curtain I had made to hide the cat box in our old house (yes, it's been thoroughly washed). This bag is quite a bit smaller, and the pocket is divided to hold four pencils.

Show us your bags!

Freecycle

Melanie from Bean Sprouts has posted today about joining your local Freecycle group. I couldn't agree more. Freecycle is a great way to get items you need or want for free, as well as a great way to get rid of things you don't need anymore and saving them from the landfill.

One thing I wanted to add to Melanie's excellent post, is that you don't HAVE to get a bunch of emails. In Yahoo Groups (which you must join to participate), you can opt for digest emails, which group together 25 or so posts in one email. Or you can opt out of emails altogether.

Here are some of the things I've recently gotten from other local Freecyclers - a big bag of blue jeans to wear and for crafts, an old manual typewriter for the kids to mess around with, some old blue canning jars and tons more.

Some things I've given away on Freecycle include clothing (both good and worn, although I disclose if clothing needs some extra care before use), packing paper, moving boxes, old towels for pet bedding, etc.

As a receiver, you never know what you can get, so it's worth asking. As Melanie points out, it's generally bad form to ask for luxury items, but this may vary depending on your location. We live in a somewhat affluent area, so asking for, say, an older digital camera is not necessarily seen as bad manners here.

And as a giver, you never know what people want. So again, worth asking!

Once you're in the group for a while, you get a feel for which items are popular and definitely worth your time listing.

Make sure you read your group's rules. Each group's moderators determine limits on things permitted. For example, our group does not allow animals to be traded on the group. They used to disallow plants, but reversed that decision.

Once you've signed up, head over to Bean-Sprouts and vote in Melanie's poll!

New (Used) Toy!

(Photo to come)

I just bought a Craftsman reel mower off of our local "garage sale" Yahoo group. (The garage sale site sprang from our Freecycle group and is another great way to find useful used items.)

Our house sits on .75 acres with another .2 acre side lot, so you might think I'm crazy for trying to mow it with a non-motorized lawn mower. But I don't know. My powered lawn mower used to be a "nice" self-propelled gas mower, but the self-propel feature broke last year, was not fixed, and makes the power mower darn heavy. I figured if I have to push mow it anyway, why not use something lighter?

Plus avoid paying $3.85/gallon to MOW MY LAWN (an artifical environment to begin with). I need that money to drive kids to school.

Not to mention avoiding all the nasty carbon emissions.

And I could stand to lose a few several a couple pounds.

So it's a win-win-win and probably a few more wins I didn't think of.

I will say my old mower would rip through small twigs and pine cones like nobody's business, where the reel mower tends to get hung up on these. But the blocks are easily cleared and, after the first few tentative efforts, I no longer hear my Grandad's voice telling me, "Don't touch those blades; they'll take your finger right off!" (Thanks, Grandad! Miss you!)

Meeting Resistance From Store Clerks

Because I am lazy (besides the two jobs and three children), I tend to reuse my existing plastic bags vs. trying out all these neato patterns listed here. (That's what you guys are for - give me feedback!) However, last week I was flabbergasted when the Meijer clerk refused to reuse my plastic bags! Here's how the conversation went:

H (me) - Oh, I brought my own bags to reuse.

Clerk - We don't reuse plastic bags.

H - What?! (This has never, ever been a problem for me before.)

C - We'll use those new reusable bags we're selling.

H - (fuming) Funny, this was never a problem before you started selling those bags.

C - Well, it's just that reusing plastic bags is unsanitary.

At this point, I pulled out my two hand-knit Nettie bags and a Target bag - yes, I whipped out a reusable Target bag at Meijer! So there!

H - They're not any less sanitary than reusing the other bags. I'm sorry, but whoever is telling you this is lying to you.

I was still mad as heck, but trying to be nice. Clerk continues to bag items, using my non-plastic reusable bags and fresh new plastic bags.

H - So, is this a store-level decision or a corporate decision? I need to know who to talk to about this new policy.

C - (looking sheepish) Well, uh, actually, I think it depends on the cashier. I mean, this is something they told me years ago. It's just one of those things that stuck with me.

H - (mentally) AH-HA!!!!

Oddly, the conversation took a friendlier turn as I told her that I would be making more Nettie bags and that I would add a buttonhole to the top edge to make them eaiser for cashiers to use at the turnstiles.

Now, I am not the best at the quick verbal comeback. Here are some points I wish I had made:

1. I have never, ever, had a Meijer cashier, or any other store cashier, question reusing plastic bags before.

2. Up until Meijer started selling their own branded reusable bags, they would refund shoppers 5 cents for each bag they brought in to reuse, thereby encouraging shoppers to reuse plastic bags.

3. Every single item I purchased was already packaged and well-protected from any "uncleaness" lurking inside a reused plastic bag. Not one thing was going to be pulled out and put directly in my mouth without unwrapping it first. Not even the apples. (I am a little ashamed of this, but it's a valid point regardless.)

4. Do most shoppers who use the canvas/whatever reusable bags wash them out after every use? I doubt it.

5. Shoppers who use the U-Scan lanes may reuse plastic bags if they choose.

I hope the cashier will think about our conversation and realize the above points. She has worked at that store for a while, so I'm sure she is familiar with the former bag refund policy. In the meantime, since it appears this is a one-cashier situation and not a store-level or corporate-level decision, I don't feel I need to write a letter or anything.

I will still shop at Meijer because they are Michigan-based (local to me), have great prices, buy at least some of their produce from local farmers, and have an amazingly diverse line of store-brand organic food that is fairly competitive price-wise with the regular stuff. And, hopefully, next time I meet a resistant cashier, I'll be better prepared to educate her about reusing plastic bags.

Project Feature: I'mm meeeeellllltttting...

No, this is not a post about icebergs. heh.

I received a comment linking to the following YouTube video, which I thought was pretty great. The pattern is for a messenger bag, but the video also shows how to fuse plastic grocery bags together to make plastic "fabric", which you could then use to sew a grocery bag.

I haven't tried it yet, but it seems you could also use this fusing technique to patch your old plastic grocery bags that you are reusing until they can be reused no more. Or nest two grocery bags together and fuse them for double strength. Seems like cashiers are always trying to double bags on me anyhow.



A lot of the video's comments asked why he bought a bag in order to get the buckles. Good point, but if you're like me, you have 87,000 bazillion old backpacks and bags with holes, etc., that really aren't usable but you hate to throw away. If not, go on Freecycle and ask for old backpacks with holes. Get the buckles off those and craft away.

Produce Bags

For a long time now, I have been bugged by the plastic produce bags at my local grocery store. It's bad enough that MOST of the produce already comes in a plastic bag. Why did I need to grab a separate bag for each type of produce that didn't come in its own bag? If I put all my veggies in one bag, would the cashier get annoyed or think I was trying to sneak something past her? So each time, I still put separate produce in separate bags. 1 head of garlic, 1 bag. 2 lemons, 1 bag. (Yes, I am trying to eat more locally, but sometimes ya gotta have a lemon!)

The the store started using EVEN BIGGER produce bags! Oh, I guess that gallon-size baggie wasn't big enough for the 1 head of garlic; we need a 6-quart size!

So what if I used no bags? Well, some things would get squashed in the cart, grapes would go all over, etc.

Another blogger (who I would link to if I could remember who it was, sorry), puts a hand-held shopping basket in her cart to hold her veggies. An excellent idea, if you remember to grab one (which I haven't), and if you are organized enough to not set the basket on top of other items that could get squashed (which I'm not).

Then, two weeks ago at the farmer's market, I realized that not only was no one selling reusable bags, every single booth was giving out plastic bags to shoppers. Grrr. I had Nettie, but avoiding plastic bags meant that all my veggies mixed up therein. Not a tragedy, certainly, but annoying.

Finally, my brain kicked into gear - why couldn't I make my own produce bags? Made from lightweight cotton or muslin, they would not add (much) weight when buying items sold by the pound. A drawstring close would keep things inside.

So, after WAY too much thought... here are my produce bags:


The first one - "gallon" size. I traced a standard zip-top food storage bag, adding a little extra at the top for the drawstring casing. Before I started, I realized that using a drawstring would make them hold less than intended. (Next task - learn to sew in a zipper!)

Using 30" of 45-inch-wide fabric, I was able to make a set of 2 "gallon" and 3 "quart" size.


Field tested today at the local farmers' maket. Big bags held four smallish bell peppers and 6 lg tomatoes, respectively, with room to spare. Small bags held a pint of smaller tomatoes (not quite cherries) and a quart of green beans. I had one small size bag left over.


Nettie held everything quite well! (Yes that is a to-be-reused plastic shopping bag at the bottom, just in case.)

You could make these with reused lightweight cotton woven fabric such as dress shirts and sheets. Four yards of drawstring trim was not even close to enough, so I improvised by reusing clean old shoelaces. Other drawstring alternatives could be: cotton yarn, ribbon, bias tape, scrap fabric. Just make sure they are washable unless you enjoy rethreading your drawstrings every time you wash the bags (I don't).

Overall, I'm really happy with how the bags worked. Besides not adding to my plastic problem, the cloth allowed the veggies to "breathe" vs. steaming in their own juices when left in the car for a couple hours afterward. (Bad, I know, but I owed the kids a trip to the park.) I will try to get an actual pattern up here soon, but I'd like to make the zipper improvement first. In the meantime, find a basic drawstring bag pattern and give it a try!

Up next - Field Test #2 - the grocery store. Stay tuned.

Inspiration

Australian artist Helle Jorgensen crochets plastic bags into amazing sea creatures. Just in case you were looking for another project for your old plastic bags.

Project Feature: Easiest DIY Reusable Bag EVER!

Beth at Fake Plastic Fish came up with this excellent project, an easy and quite viable alternative to new reusable bags. She writes:

"Plastic bags are easy to fold up and keep in your purse or backpack. They're just not as cute as hip nylon bags and they don't scream "Environmentalist" when you carry your groceries down the street. So you want people to know you reuse your bags? Turn them inside out and write "Reusable Bag" on the outside. You could even make a tally of the number of times the bag has been used just to prove it."

Beth was being a bit tongue-in-cheek to make a point. But I think it's a good point and worth sharing here. The last thing I want is a bunch of people rushing out to buy acrylic yarn and bringing it home in plastic bags in order to knit/crochet reusable bags.

So, if you already have a collection of plastic bags lurking under your cabinet, try this out.

Turn your bag inside out.*


If desired, add a design.


Voila!

After some experimentation, Beth and I decided that ball-point pens work best for adding designs to the bags. A certain popular brand of permanent marker works great, but is a bit fume-y. Bold-tip washable markers designed for kids are a bit light, but also work, if you let them dry thoroughly before using.

I totally love the tally marks.

The best part: Once your "Easiest DIY Reusable Bag EVER!" gets a hole in the bottom or the handles rip, you can cut it down into plastic "yarn" and make it into another bag like this one.

*Apologies to Target. Your bags are very reusable, thanks.

In the meantime...

While you're still working on your not-plastic grocery bags, ask your local store if they give credits for reused plastic bags or using cloth bags. The two major-chain grocery stores I shop at both give a .05 credit (US) for every bag you reuse. These are regular stores, not stores with a significant focus on organics or whole foods or anything special. So ask.

Even if your local store doesn't give credit for reused bags, reuse them anyway until you get your non-plastic stash up to speed.

BTW, IKEA has started charging shoppers for plastic bags.