Sewing Project: produce bag

Day 4 of Camera Cord-mageddon: I received my new cord early (thanks Wal-Mart ship to store!) but alas, it did not fit my camera. That's what I get for being cheap and ordering the $3 one online, sight unseen, instead of splurging on the $15 one at the store that I know fits. Blah. Every time I think about this I immediately get a headache, so I'm moving on!

A few months back, I spotted this book at the library and had to take it home:

Sewing Green

The full title is Sewing Green: 25 Projects Made with Repurposed & Organic Materials. I'm sure that we all have accumulated so many scraps and old t-shirts that sometimes our own houses might feel like a landfill! So why not shop your own stuff and make some projects that help cut the clutter? Of course, the project I'm talking about today did not use anything old, but it does help me reduce the amount of plastic bags I bring into this house. There were some great projects in this book, but the one I gravitated to the most was these produce bags. Of course they look much prettier in the book, but mine is still totally functional.

Can you tell this is in iPad photo?

The book advises using fruits and vegetables and paint to do some fabric stamping. I attempted to make a stamp using a green pepper with the bottom cut off. It was a total fail. The stamp simply did not look like a pepper, it looked like a green blob. I went ahead and filled it in so that I could just embrace the blob-ness and make it look a tad more purposeful. Whatever. And yes, I used plain ole acrylic craft paint. It's probably not food-safe and maybe not the best idea for a produce bag...but I'll take my chances.

The fabric is a super lightweight cotton gauze from Jo-Ann's. It's crazy stretchy, which is useful when I'm trying to cram 6 sweet potatoes into the bag. This is the only time I've ever worked with gauze, but I think it would be awesome to wear. I've seen some pretty printed gauzes since then and have had a hard time resisting them.

Construction is simple. Cut two rectangles, then sew up the sides and the bottom, right-sides together. Make a casing at the top and insert a ribbon. Done! The longest part of this project was waiting for the paint to dry before sewing.

Hey, did I mention that I made a goal for April to not buy any fabric? Crazy, right? If you can believe it, I only bought 1 single solitary yard the entire month. It might be the hardest thing I've ever done. And I only bought that one yard because we'd made a special trip to the particular store. So to reward myself for my restraint, I'm thinking...shopping spree? Just kidding. I'm still saving up for a serger. Amazon is teasing me, because a month ago the price had dropped all the way down to $179. Today it's over $250. You can't trick me, Amazon. I can wait!