Without a doubt I suffer from severe Crafter’s Attention Deficit Disorder (CADD). A constant excited flitting from one craft genre to another; one project to another, my ‘condition’ is now greatly enabled by the incredible goldmines of imagination and inspiration that are StumbleUpon, Pinterest and the like. One minute, a beautifully intricate, frilly girl’s crochet dress designed my Lisa Naskrent takes 190% of my attention; the challenge of recreating this excessively cute garment has me falling over myself to progress….then I “Stumbleupon” etch glass, make a dress for less than $6, make teeny tiny marble fridge magnets etc. and the attention I give to my 85%-complete dress drops precipitously to 2%. That 2% consists of the nagging guilty conscience I have for yet another UFO, or “unfinished object” languishing in craft purgatory /AKA a Michael’s/Joann’s carrier bag shoved unceremoniously in a cupboard, often for eternity.
I can blame all the “Stumblers” and "Pinners" I want, but this really is nothing new thing for me. I’m a chronic CADD sufferer. Over the years I’ve skipped from dressmaking, to appliqué, over to knitting, round the corner to making mosaics, up and over to jewelry making, into card making, over to cupcake cooking...often back and forth and round and round….you get the picture. I’m an amazing “starter”. I love nothing more than collecting all the ‘stuff’ I need for my new favorite thing and plunging headfirst and obsessively into a project. I love to place myself in a position of incompetence, or at a level of only basic understanding, and LEARN. I love the feeling of graduating from novice to expert (or, depending on how fast I skip to another project, to competence – Jack of all Trades anyone?). I am not a good finisher….I’m an enforced finisher! I’m a pressure-prompted finisher. I need a goal, a deadline, or someone to nag me, or ban me from any further JoAnn’s/Michaels visits until I have a finished object in my hands. My boyfriend is good at this and I welcome it! Because at the end of the day, there is even greater satisfaction holding a finished article in your hands, and nowadays, an even greater thrill when someone buys it from my Etsy Store "Champagne in One Hand". That happened for the first time this week and I was jump-up-and-down excited! Barbara Sher has written a great book on people like me (and her) – she even has a name for us (scanners). Apparently there are lots of people just like me and we are capable of doing some pretty amazing stuff when we harness our bubbling enthusiasm and burning need to constantly learn new things and have new challenges. I was so happy (and further enabled!) when I read that!
This week my CADD and a surprise 60th birthday party allowed me to start AND finish something (two things actually!) that I’d never made before. I was inspired by this blog and this blog to make a recycled t shirt gift bag.
After the present has been opened, and the deviled eggs, birthday cake and balloons have been put away, this gift bag ‘transforms’ into a reusable grocery bag or laundry bag, or just, well, a bag. The likelihood of this project avoiding UFO-ness was good from the start – I HAD to have something to wrap the gift in and I was time-bound (party the following day). As I said, I chart off the “pressure-prompted” scale – Perfect!
I was so hopeful of completion and of a good result, that I even captured the creative events photographically for my very first tutorial. I soon realized that creating a photo tutorial is a bit trickier than I first imagined. When in the throes of the creative process, it can be tough to remember to stop and take photos of all the stages. So my first photo tutorial is actually a combination of the creation of two bags (a turquoise blue one and a black/gray striped one) with a couple more thrown in for good measure. I hope this isn’t too confusing. But just think, you get to see two different looks and hey, I finished two things!!
So here is my inaugural tutorial!
Tutorial for Recycled T-shirt Gift/Grocery Bag:
To make this bag, you will need:
- A T shirt (I got mine from a thrift store for 50c and freshly laundered it but you probably have some old unworn ones languishing next to your UFOs at the back of your closet)
- Buttons (Joann’s or thrift store)
- The usual (scissors, thread, pins, sewing machine)
- Ribbon
Step 1: Lay your T shirt flat (I forgot to take a photo of the "before" T shirt until after I’d cut and used one of the sleeves, and chopped out the neckline, but a little imagination and you will see an untouched t shirt.
Step 2: Following the line of the armhole seams, cut off the sleeves (see next picture).
Step 3: Place a plate (or some other round item with the desired radius) on the neckline of the T shirt and cut a semicircle. You are left with something that looks like a cross between a vest top and a bottomless carrier bag.
Step 4: Turn the T shirt inside out. Pin and sew across the bottom of the T shirt (I used wide zig zag stitch to allow for T shirt stretch, and I sewed over and back across for improved strength). Ek, sorry, no photo for this bit....note to self!
Step 5: Sew across the top of the shoulders – this is just to strengthen the ‘handles’ of the bag – use the same zig-zag stitch – back and forth.
Your recycled T shirt bag is done! That was super easy wasn’t it?!!
Super easy and if you want to stop here, you already have a great reusable grocery bag. If you are going to stop here, I suggest looking for T shirts with fun designs or pictures on them, that don't need any extra decoration, like these:
Pretty cool (and they work! I've tried them!) but not a very pretty gift bag – you need to bling it up a bit for that. My blinging consisted of 3 double-layered flowers. I cut these out of leftover T shirt fabric but you could do this using any fabricy material (eg cotton) instead if you like. A bonus of using T shirt fabric is that it doesn’t really fray. Cotton does, but there is “stuff” out there to stop that eg Aleene's "Stop Fraying" – just remember to test on a spare piece of fabric as this can leave visible marks on some fabrics.
Step 6: Cut out a long oblong of fabric:
- For the outer flower layer I cut 18.5” long x 2.5” wide.
- For the inner flower layer I cut 18.5” x 1.5” wide.
Step 7: For each fabric strip, fold over 2” and iron. Continue folding 2” at a time so you end up with 9 x 2” concertinered pieces of fabric (yes you started with 18.5” so you should have 0.5” spare but you will be amazed how that 0.5” “disappears” into the fabric folds. This 0.5” spare suggestion came from Linda Permann in her tutorial and is very handy, you will see).
Step 8: Hold your folded fabric strips so that the folds are at each side. Starting about a third of way down, use sharp scissors to cut a semi-circle shape across the top (ie from folded side to folded side).
Open up your fabric strip and voila! just like those paper family cutouts you made when you were little you will have a chain of 9 n-shaped rounded hills. Each of those “hills” will go on to become a petal. If you would like more petals – double the number in fact, just cut an “m” shape rather than an “n” shape at the top.
Repeat this process for all your fabric strips. I chose to make 3 double-layered flowers so I had 3 x 2.5” wide strips and 3 x 1.5” strips.
Step 9: Next, using a matching thread, sew a running stitch along the long straight edge of the fabric strips.
(Yep I definitely need a manicure or a hand model...)
Step 10: Pull the thread tight to gather the “petals”. Secure into a circle and use a number of stitches to secure the base and shape of the flower. Join the first and last petals with a few stitches.
Step 11: Place a smaller flower on top of a larger flower and sew together to form a double-layered blossom.
Wow! The flower magically multiplied and changed color!
Step 12: Attach a button to the center of each flower and sew to your bag.
Step 13: Fill with a pressie and tie at the top to complete your beautiful gift bag! I used some matching ribbon that I had lying around but you could just as easily use a leftover strip of T shirt.
Step 14: Wish your T shirt gift bag happiness in it's new life as a reusable grocery bag and celebrate your crafty, environmentally-friendly, recycle-tasticness with "Champagne in one hand...gift bag in the other". Cheers!
I hope have enjoyed this tutorial. Please let me know if you have any difficulties understanding anything.
This tutorial was submitted to Home Stories A2Z Tutorials and Links Tip Party
