Nebraska Bag Lady!

Teresa,

I just wanted to thank you for starting this project. It's been such fun for our family. On August 5th I blogged about our adventures in making our first "Green Bag Lady" bag from your pattern. I'm not a seamstress and actually learned how to thread my portable sewing machine by reading the manual. We've enjoyed making new ones continually with the tons of fabric I picked up at a rummage sale for less than a dollar! I try to spruce them up by using fun "kiddie" fabrics for the handles. For example: Carebear, Bob the Builder, Sweethearts, Cars (the movie), etc. Here's a picture of a few of our bags with groceries in them.

I wanted to also send you a shot of something I thought was interesting. Here's a whole endcap full of cloth bags. SIX dollars a piece and they really have little to no personality at all. I would hate for people to think they have to go out and buy pre-made bags at this high prices. The bags I'm making literally cost me pennies. Yes, it takes time to make. But I get to put a little love and specialness into each one. I won't be able to do this on the scale that you do at this time, but I can start small.

We've also used old shirts to make bags. The Mexican yellow shirt picture was an old shirt of my daughter's. It has permanent paint (acryllic) across the front from a painting project she did last summer. She really loved the shirt, so we just made it into a bag and she loves to fill it with toys and carry it around.

One other idea I'm implementing this year is making reusable cloth Halloween bags for NEXT year. We've made the horrible mistake year after year of getting those horrible plastic containers for trick or treating. This year it was princess and spiderman plastic candy holders. They looked so sturdy, but they're so poorly made that they usually break before the following year (plus they're hard to store). So starting this next year we'll be using re-usable trick or treating bags and our hope is to make enough to give some really neat ones away to friends and family starting in September of next year. Right now Halloween fabrics are going on clearance, so it's the time to pick up some really good and cheap stuff.

Anyway, thanks again and we'll continue to keep up with you!
~Shaye (Chadron, Nebraska)