Mused: Create: Picking Up The Trash

I typically have a long wait every night for my vanpool ride. The area of town where I work is mostly business, but for some reason, there is trash everywhere. Not so much around my building, but on Wednesday I found a ripped open bag of buns sitting in the driveway across the street where I wait. Seriously. Half the buns were still in the bag, the rest were scattered over the pavement. I picked it up and took it inside one of the offices and asked if they could throw it away.

I've picked up pieces here and there when I had space in my bag or happened to have an extra bag with me. But I don't have room for all the slimy dirty trash littering the earth. So I made myself a bag. :) (My friend tells me I have enough bags... I don't believe her.)

I've had these place mats hanging around my house for years now. I thought I would use them for making napkins or something like that, but they just sat in my stash. I didn't want to ruin them! Now that I could actually use place mats, I cut one of them up for my bag... Maybe I do have too many bags.

I based my pattern on a paper lunch sack type of bag and added a nifty handle idea I saw on Daisy Janie. I cut up an old file folder rescued from the work trash can as my template so I can make more.

1 - Cut out two pieces of for the body of the bag. Mine are just a little smaller than a file folder. The white in the image above was a lining in my place mat.

2 - Fold over and iron the top edge of each bag to hem it. Sew to keep your opening from fraying.

3 - Put the fabric right sides together and sew along three edges.

4 - Fold a corner so that the sewn lines sit on top of each other. (Sorry, no picture) This should make a triangle at each corner. Sew perpendicular to your previous line about an inch away from the corner. This will give you a triangle and a flat bottom. Repeat with the other side.

5 - Turn the bag rightside out and iron creases where the triangles end. You are making 'pleats' for the bag to follow when it stands up and folds. You want it to look like a small paper lunch bag. Press your bag flat, fold in thirds the long way, iron, and roll up.

6 - Cut out a 3 inch wide strip for a handle. It can be however long you want it to be long enough to go around your rolled up bag when folded in half. Mine ended up being thirteen inches because that was the width of my place mat.

7 - Fold strip in half the long way with rightside in and sew down the strip. Turn rightside out, iron, and sew on each side.

8 - Anchor your strip on the inside of your bag on the center third. Sew over the strips to anchor them in place.

9 - Cut another strip of fabric, this time half of what your longer strip was (See the Daisy Janie tutorial for better details. I just coasted by the seat of my pants). Repeat step 7 and 8 but anchor on the other side.