The Girl by the Sea » cheesecloth produce bag

Cloth Bag Giveaway

Jennifer — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 14:23:56 +0000

I really want to thank everyone who stops by my little space and especially those who leave such encouraging comments. I have been wanting to do a giveaway for a while now, but I wanted a little chance for things to calm down after Christmas. Today I want to send a little thank you to one of my readers, I wish I could send something to you all. This month I have been really good about using my cloth bags as part of One Small Change. I thought what a perfect opportunity to combine a giveaway with something I am passionate about. So today, I am giving away two cloth bags. One is a regular shopping bag, and one is one of my new Cheesecloth Produce Bags, both made by moi. All you have to do is leave a comment between now and 10:00pm MST on Sunday. I will announce a winner on Monday morning. On a side note, my eldest has to get a tooth pulled today. It’s a stubborn baby tooth not wanting to give up it’s place to a more permanent one. It has been long enough and shows no signs of going, so today is the day. Wish us luck.

Cheesecloth Produce Bag

Jennifer — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 14:37:45 +0000

This month I made a renewed commitment to using cloth bags for shopping. The only problem is that in the grocery store, there are those awful little produce bags. I think I must be the only person who stands there trying to open them, they just never want to work like they should. Then there’s the whole thing with throwing a bunch more little plastic bags in the trash as soon as we get home. Even when we use cloth bags to bag up all of the groceries, these produce bags have been a problem. Since I am not using any plastic bags anymore, I needed to come up with a solution, and quick. Now, I do not live near a fabric store, and my choices are very limited. I wasn’t coming across anything at the thrift store that would work, and it finally dawned on me that I could use cheesecloth. It’s sturdy, and yet somewhat sheer. Something about the lighting in this pictures makes it seem as though you can’t really see what’s in the bag, but you can in person. I made these simple drawstring produce bags and I am thrilled with how they turned out. They were extremely easy to sew together, and they are going to be a huge help when it comes to lugging produce back from the store. If you can sew a straight line, you can make these bags, and here’s my tutorial to help you out. Hope you guys enjoy!

Cheesecloth Produce Bag Tutorial

Jennifer — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 14:34:44 +0000

This is a quick and easy tutorial for cheesecloth produce bags. If you can sew a straight line, you can make these. Sometimes the pictures might make it more confusing than just reading the words, as you can’t tell which is the front and back of the cheesecloth, but bear with me, it will work out in the end. It looks a little untidy with the brown thread, but I needed to make it so you can see the stitches, it looks a lot neater when using natural coloured thread. I bought a package of cheesecloth and just cut it in two to make two produce bags. Each piece was approx. 17″ x 35″. You can easily make different sized produce bags if you want different sizes, the same method applies. Edited to add: There are varying qualities of cheesecloth. Make sure that you use a tighter weave cheesecloth so that you don’t have problems with snagging. This needs to be fairly sturdy to lug produce around. Materials needed: cheesecloth natural coloured thread natural coloured cotton yarn Cut a piece of cheesecloth 17″ x 35″. Fold over one of the long sides of cheesecloth by 1/4″. Iron it and fold it over again another 1/4″. Iron one more time. Stitch along the folded side. Now, fold the cheesecloth so that the short ends are at the top, wrong sides together. You want the outside of the side hem facing out. The side that you stitched is going to be on the right hand side when you are looking at it. You want to leave the top two inches of the folded side unstitched (this is where we will make the drawstring casing). Starting two inches down from the top, stitching slightly more than 1/4″ from the edge, stitch to the bottom. In the tutorial I used a zig zag stitch, but later found out that it is better to just use a straight stitch. Now stitch the left hand side from the very top, to the very bottom. Next, turn the bag inside out and press. Stitch down both sides 1/2″ from the edge , making sure to leave the top two inches (on the one side) unstitched. Turn bag right side out again and press. Next, fold the top of the bag in 1/4″ and press. Stitch all the way around. Fold the top down again and press. When you fold it down, you want the top to meet where the seam ends on the side. Stitch around once again to make the casing. Measure a piece of cotton yarn twice the width of the bag, plus a couple of inches. Tie a loose knot and stick a safety pin through it. Thread the pin through the casing until each end of the string is sticking out of the casing. Tie the ends of string in a knot and pull the string around so that the knot is now back inside the casing. There you go, one fantastic new cheesecloth produce bag. Enjoy!