Welcome to everyone who just found us via Lish’s fab blog post on Craft about our appearance at the Ann Arbor Mini-Maker Faire a couple weeks ago.
We had a blast teaching folks to make over 200 t-shirt bags. We met loads of great people, many who never had attempted using a sewing machine before and couldn’t believe how much fun and easy it was. Plus the bags were the perfect accessory for Mini-Maker to carry all the loot from other booth’s make and takes folks tried.
To make your own t-shirt bag, grab any old t-shirt (kid’s shirts work especially great, just the right size), cut off the sleeves just on the inside seam and cut out the neck, just a bit below the ribbed collar, keep the shirt lying flat so hole is uniform in size, front and back.
Step 1: Cut sleeves and neck opening to create handles
Next turn the shirt inside out and sew a straight seam along the bottom.
If you want to get a little more fancy, you can square off the bottom of bag, by opening the bottom seam and creating a triangle at the corner and stitching this on both sides and trim the excess material. Repeat on the other corner.
Step 2-3 - Sew bottom & corner
TaDaa! T-Shirt bag is complete!
If you want to do a mass event of turning t-shirts to bags, ask to collect the bags from local schools. I placed a box near my kid’s school office and in less than 2 weeks I had collected over 200 t-shirts in all sorts of sizes and motifs. Many parents were thrilled to clean out their kid’s closets of old sport team t-shirts. This is a great project for kids and adults to sew. Let me know if you try this as a school or scout event.