t-bags

This project is a repurposed project.  I love t-shirts, and I wear them alot.  I also wear them out or stain them, and until now have always just put my favorites or memory jogging ones up on the top shelf of my closet.  Then today I ran across a pepsi refresh project video, where a woman took old t-shirts and turned them into bags.  My first batch was very large bags, but none the less cool.  The next batch I am working on will be more like the size of a grocery bag, which is large child or teenager sized shirts.  There is a ton of instructions but they are all the same basic model.  But I like lots of pictures and small words...


Step on of this project is to gather your stuff... old t-shirt, scissors, pen/pencil, plate, and sewing machine (I suppose you could hand sew)

This is one of my shirts I used, the poor thing is stained but I can't bear to get rid of it.

Cut each sleeve off the shirt leaving the seam on what will now be bag portion of the t-shirt.  I used my fingertips to make sure the seams on the front and back of the sleeve are on top of each other.  Only do one sleeve at a time, this project is quick so there is no need to rush it.  At this point you have your basic sleeveless shirt.

 Lay the shirt flat and naturally ( the front neck will be lower the the back of it a little bit then place the dinner plate on the shirt in the middle of it.  Using a marker lightly mark around the plate you can either trace one long line or a few spots.  

 Then remove the plate and begin cutting the neck off.  Cut just outside the line so it will go with the scrap.  Once it is all cut it will look something like this.

 Turn the shirt inside out and line up the bottom seam and using a straight stitch sew right in the existing seam.  A straight stitch worked fine for me, but really, whatever makes you comfortable, don't sew backwards in the beginning and at the end to kind of lock it in place.

Once you are finished it will look sort of like this.  Flip it right side out and throw it in the hot wash cycle and tada...  A real recycled-reuseable shopping bag.