Grocery Bag Holder Tutorial ~ Easy Picture Walk-Through for Making a Fabric Grocery Bag Dispenser

Do you like reusing plastic grocery bags but hate the look of that grocery bag stuffed full of other grocery bags? Yeah, me too. That's why I finally made one of these fabulous fabric grocery bag holders.

*The fabric I've used is from a Camelot line called "Wildflowers" designed by Alisse Courter*

For this project, you will need:

~fabric (I used a 20 x 25" piece of fabric, which you can get from .5 m)

~matching thread (Mettler or guetterman polyester are suggested)

~straight pins

~fabric scissors

~ribbon or cording (for tie at the top)

~1/4" elastic (1/3rd of the width of your fabric, so I have 6")

~safety pin

~sewing machine

Lay your fabric with the right side down with the shorter sides on the top and bottom.

Fold the top and bottom over about 1/2" and pin or press in place.

Now sew your hems in place.

Your top and bottom should look something like this. Neatness doesn't matter much because you won't be seeing this once the bag is finished.

Lay your ribbon out near the top. Line it up close to the raw edge of your hem (a bit closer than I have it here)

Now fold over and pin the fabric so that your previous stitch lines up with the edge of your ribbon.

Make sure both edges are folded over a bit like this so that you can't see your raw edges once the project is finished.

Now sew your hem in place. Be careful not to sew over your ribbon. I ensure this by lining up the ribbon with my previous stitch and then sewing the second hem in place along the seam of the previous hem.

Now do the same thing with the bottom except don't use ribbon. On the bottom, we're going to feed through your elastic. Your elastic length should be about 1/3rd the width of your piece of fabric. So mine is about 6" long.

Sew your hem, fasten a safety pin to one end of your elastic, and begin to feed it through your hem.

Once the other end reaches the opening of your hem, pin it in place and keep going. It'll get harder and harder as you go on, but you want there to be a lot of ruffling so that the hole at the bottom of your bag is nice and tight. Once you get to the end, pin it in place.

And then sew the ends of your elastic firmly in place with a sewing machine.

Now, fold your project in half length-wise with right sides together.

You may want to pin your ribbon at the top out of the way so that you don't have to worry about sewing over it by accident.

Using a 1/2" seam, sew along the entire length, being sure to fix your stitches at the beginning and end and to remove your pins before you sew over them.

Turn your project right-side-out, fill it with those lovely plastic grocery bags, and tie it somewhere in your house where it will be useful and aesthetically pleasing.

And there you go. :)

In case you were wondering, I didn't actually put it on my fridge. That would be a pain. My pantry (where I actually put it) is just a mess and has very bad lighting.  Not an ideal background for a photo. :P

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