Grocery bag holder tutorial

Let's face it, we all have lots of plastic bags. At our house, we reuse them as bin liners. To save them falling out of the cupboard, I made this. It's a teeny bit complicated ( although that may just be because I was working out how to explain it to you and take photos at the same time), but doing it how I show you makes it very strong.

Step One

First of all, cut your material. I used a 75cm long by 20cm wide piece of spotty cuteness. I recommend that you make it a lot wider, as it was really thin. I couldn't help it, though, as that was the widest piece of the spotty fabric I had. The holder pictured above was a wider one, but I'm not sure of the dimensions, it was finished before I started blogging. Right, now you need to do a rolled hem at both ends. Make sure you do them on the shorter sides. I showed you how to do a rolled hem here. It's on Step Three. Make sure the rolled hem is big enough so that you can put elastic in one and ribbon in the other. I also rolled the sides as they will be showing. We don't want any unravelling, do we?! I really hope that the photos explain it better, but if not, please comment and I'll try to help you out. :) Pin and machine stitch in place. You may want to stitch back and forwards at the end to ensure it stays strong.

See the rolled sides here?

Step Two

Now, we're going to make it into a bag. One of the fabric sides was the side that doesn't fray (not sure what it's called!) so I folded it over to make it neater. Make sure you do not sew over the bits you sewed in step one. If you did, you wouldn't be able to hang it up! Start just beyond it, as in the photo. Pin the longer sides together and machine stitch. Again, you may want to stitch backwards and forwards at the ends a bit to make sure it stays strong.

Step Three

Get some elastic and pin a safety pin onto it. Thread it through one of the rolled hems you did in step one, making sure the other end doesn't disappear.

Step Four

Tie your elastic and push it round, so that the knot is hidden.

Now you see the knot,

Now you don't!

Step Five

Do the same with the other rolled hem, but thread some strong ribbon through it instead of elastic. I like the knot to be visible, but its up to you. Fill it with bags and enjoy your space-saving bag holder!

Not sure how it works? You put the bags in the top and the elastic holds them all in. When you want a bag, just pull one out from the bottom.

:)

Simple!