Shopping bag keep-safe

One of many crafty books I bought recently was Meet me at Mike's by Pip Lincolne who also has her own blog by the same name.

I chose to try the Shopping bag keep-safe project first, as I needed somewhere to keep those pesky plastic bags. It requires "one smallish vintage tablecloth or two vintage tea-towels". I didn't have any such things lying around, but picked up a kitsch tea-towel in pristine condition from the Y's buys op-shop in Kingston for a very reasonable 40c.

As you can see, it is a vibrant yellow tea-towel with a 1979 calendar and lots of flowers and koalas. It measured 74cmx45cm (29"x18"), meaning I was actually able to fit all the pattern pieces on the one towel, although the front is sideways. I actually like it that way, so you can see the date and the two koalas.


I made one small alteration: I added a button to the strap, as I knew I'd be attaching it to railings and handles with no opening to slide it on. It worked out OK...I even worked out how to use the buttonhole and the button foot on my sewing machine!

I also like the fact that the end of the strap says "WTF"... Wednesday Thursday Friday of course ;)

It fits all our rogue plastic bags (we don't have too many, having nice cloth shopping bags) and I used a cheap little fastener because that's all I had on hand. A strip of velcro might have worked better.


All in all, it was a fun project... I especially liked the fact that the book came with full-sized pattern pieces (no wrestling with the photocopying machine) though I managed to lose two of the four pieces in the process :(