Cloth Shopping Bags?

The easiest shopping bag in the world is made from an old tank top.  Sew the bottom shut.  Done.

There's a badge bit for sewing these yourself: https://permies.com/wiki/128025/pep-textiles/Sew-grocery-bags-PEP-BB

I upcycled some cotton drapery fabric one friend gave me, and a stained sweat shirt a different friend gave me, and Hubby prefers these over any other bags we have. He's been bugging me to make more and Christmas is coming!

I'm sure our fashion people can guess the era the fabric came from - gaudy but so comfortable to carry, and they aren't easy to loose, either!

Pearl Sutton wrote:Me and another lady made them to sell years ago. Turns  out people won't pay 10.00 for a cloth bag, no matter how well made when they can buy a crap one for 1.00 that lasts 4 months before ripping. I had no energy to market them better, I'm still using them.

I'm surprised that you experienced this.  I have bought quite a few reusable shopping bags over the years, and I think $10 is a reasonable price for a good quality one.  My average price has probably been about that, maybe even $12.  Most of these have been canvas bags.  Some cheaper ones (I think they were $6 or $7 each) feature thinner canvas that hasn't held up as well.  I'm still using these years later, but they have developed small holes.  The thicker bags are better.

You are right: the $1 woven or matted polypropylene reusable bags they sell at the grocery store are not worth it.  I have read a study that, in order to break even in terms of resource usage compared to single-use plastic bags, they have to be re-used at least 100 times.  I don't think those cheap reusable bags are up to that challenge.

Some of the reusable bags I own are in fact also woven plastic, but they are heavy duty material that will last, I'm guessing, for decades.  That option is also out there.  I haven't been using these for as long, so I couldn't compare them to the cotton canvas bags in terms of how well they wear and how easy they are to clean.

Edward Lye wrote:BEWARE of non-woven cloth bags. I had several in the past and they have this nasty failure mode in which all of a sudden they just disintegrate without warning - everything will drop out. PLUS, they use plastic glue to hold the fibres together. This will ruin your no-plastic resolution.

Interesting.  I have seen non-woven materials where the fibers are pressed/matted together with a glue, but never ones using natural fibers.  Are you sure what you have experienced weren't in fact using plastic fibers?  Even a lot of woven reusable bags use plastic fiber "cloth."

Matthew Nistico wrote:

Pearl Sutton wrote:Me and another lady made them to sell years ago. Turns  out people won't pay 10.00 for a cloth bag, no matter how well made when they can buy a crap one for 1.00 that lasts 4 months before ripping. I had no energy to market them better, I'm still using them.

I'm surprised that you experienced this.  I have bought quite a few reusable shopping bags over the years, and I think $10 is a reasonable price for a good quality one.  My average price has probably been about that, maybe even $12.

We tried to do it just before cloth  bags became a stylish thing; when the cheap crap ones were first showing up at the stores and people were starting to buy them. We were too far ahead of the social curve. I could probably sell these easily for 25.00 +  these days.

no cloth but... our locsl resale shop ( that benefits the animal shelter) has an angel who makes usable bags out of cat/dog food that they give away at the shop!

Sandy

Sprouts Farmers Market (grocery store) updated their regular plastic bags into thicker reusable ones and charge 10 cents a piece. I think they should charge more than that, so people will feel more encouraged to actually reuse them. I am still using the first of those bags I got over 2 years ago for most of my shopping. They're surprisingly durable. I have crocheted some bags; they're pretty cool but I prefer using the sprouts bags tbh. Partly because I don't want to damage my pretty crocheted ones - those Sprouts bags can really take a beating. I recently pulled out my sewing machine so maybe I will try to earn the BB for this!

I'm pretty sure this isn't what this thread is supposed to be about, but I repurposed a bunch of single-use bags into a multi-use bag that I've been using for over ten years!

Awesome bags and ideas
I'll add few picks of mine. Fabrics came from fabric stores that are no longer in existence and from a free rack at my local thrift shop (it's crazy how much fabrics get thrown away whether clothing, bed sheet, pants and so on).
I've made many but gave them away and kept those. There are more in the making I plan to donate to that same thrift shop once I have more time to sew them.

r ranson wrote:Anyone have some pictures of your cloth shopping bags you can share?  Creative, beautiful, functional?  

No pics I could share here, but they work excellent as frost protectors over your smallish spring plants. I use them to cover my tomatoes,  cukes, peppers . Works like a charm. The large walmart ones will cover 2 plants at a time in a row of singles, likely would cover 4 if you had them in a square