Friday, October 7, 2011

Fat Quarter Friday: Reusable Grocery Bag Dress Up

This week's Fat Quarter Friday craft is really easy, but it's actually one of my favorites so far. You know those reusable grocery bags? Well, we have just about a million of them, but can never seem to remember to bring them into the store. I was thinking that maybe if they were cuter I'd actually remember to take them in. I know a lot of people are making their own, but since I already have a bunch, I thought we'd just dress them up!

Materials:
Reusable grocery bags
1 Fat quarter for each grocery bag

Step 1: Measure the part of the grocery bag that you want to cover. I decided to cover the rectangular piece in between the handles (mainly to cover up the ugly labels). This area on my bags measured 7in x 13in.
 Step 2: Cut out your fabric rectangles from your fat quarters. Make sure that they are slightly bigger than the area you want to cover. I cut mine to be 7.5in x 13.5in. That way I could fold under the edges for a nice clean look.
 Step 3: Turn your fabric wrong side up and iron the edges under on the long side 1/4in. Then iron under the edges on the short sides 1/4in as well.

 Step 4: Lay your ironed piece of fabric over the area you want it sewed on to. Line up the top right corner (shown in the picture with the blue colored pencil) and begin sewing from this corner going clockwise. Be careful during this step not to sew over other parts of the bag as you go (I had to use the seam ripper a couple of times on my first bag because I tried to go too fast). My rectangles didn't line up exactly, so you can adjust the edges (folding them under more or less) as you go. Repeat on the other side and then on the other bags.
 Step 5: Admire the transformation. I really like how these turned out. I wanted all of my bags to kind of "go" together, so I picked black and white fat quarters, but I only had two, so I'll have to wait to fix up more of my bags after a trip to Joann's.


1 comment:

  1. i love this idea to snazzy up the bags! so clever-chic!

    ReplyDelete