Teresa Peschel

Cloth grocery bags have two costs. The first is your time so you want to be as efficient as possible in making them. The second is the fabric. When buying cloth grocery bag material, you want to look for something sturdy. Start with wovens. Knits generally have too much stretch for grocery bags. If the […]

This is the last step. You will be sewing down straps, first the front panel and then the back panel, finishing each bag in turn. I sew each strap down as a single, continuous stitch line, never removing the needle from the strap or cutting the thread until the bag strap is complete. This means […]

Now we’re sewing bag straps. The first step is to pin the straps to the bags. You will need the stack of bags, your collection of straps, pins, and your spacers and bag insert. If you want to insert a horizontal fabric tag indicating you made the grocery bag, you’ll need them too. I place […]

Set the pile of partially finished cloth grocery bags aside. Now it’s time for making bag straps. If you are going to make cloth straps rather than use purchased webbing, now is the time to do it. Dig through your stash and find those 45-inch-wide pieces of moderate-weight junk fabric in a reasonably coordinating color. […]

In this step, you will prepare the fold-down top, iron the bag, sew down the fold-down top, and then trim it out. At the ironing board, fold down the top edge 2 inches, and press, aligning the stitch line with the stitch line in the bag beneath. The triangular cutouts will allow the foldover to […]

This is the step whereby the flange is turned into a skeleton, supporting the tailored cloth grocery bag. This step reinforces the six edges and four corners of the bags: front panel side, bottom, and side and back panel side, bottom, and side. Measure Twice, Cut Once Measure down 2 inches from the top edge […]

At this point, you should have several grocery bags ready for the second pass. In this step, you will iron a crisp knife-edge on each of the six seams. Then you will sew a half-inch seam all the way around, front and back, producing a flange that will enclose all the raw edges. The flange […]

Your cloth has been purchased. You’ve washed it (if needed), unpicked any seams (if it is repurposed fabric), and you have ironed it. You measured the fabric, then worked out the most economical layout of panels and gussets on paper. You cut the fabric into panels and gussets. Now it is time to start sewing […]

I taught myself how to sew grocery bags in quantity. I know there are plenty of things that I have missed or don’t understand. There isn’t much information out there about sewing the same thing over and over, especially for the home seamstress. Patterns assume you’ll only make one item and only one at a […]