Sew Cloth Grocery Bags

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Sew Cloth Grocery Bags Media Photos

No pattern required!

Detailed instruction with photos and illustrations.

More than 30 charts to help you lay out panels with minimal waste.

Use scraps from your stash or repurposed drapes or tablecloths!

Choose from two designs: the easy “boxed” bag and the elegant tailored bag.

Plastic grocery bags are on their way out. They’re a littering hazard and a terrible use of limited resources. Many communities have passed laws banning them, and stores have taken to charging you for them. The solution: Make your own tough, high-quality bags from cloth. Cloth bags can be washed, repaired, and will last you a lifetime. They are also not hard to make if you have a sewing machine and basic sewing skills.

You also need “Sew Cloth Grocery Bags,” the one-stop solution where you can learn to make dozens of bags using either the efficient “boxed” bag or the intuitive tailored bag. Teresa Peschel, an experienced home sewer who has made hundreds of these bags for her Peschel Press publishing business, sits down with you and describes in detail and with shortcuts how you can turn new or salvaged fabric into sturdy and sellable cloth grocery bags.

* How to source your material from fabric stores and thrift shops
* How to prepare it for sewing
* How to cut the panels with minimal waste fabric
* What to use for the straps
* How to sew six or even a dozen bags at a time without losing your mind.

Peschel also provides you with expert advice for unusual situations such as piecing together bags from scraps, fabric that bunches up while sewing, and dealing with fabric that has a clear direction. There are even chapters on setting up your own business selling bags at craft shows and art fairs.

“Sew Cloth Grocery Bags” is an easy-to-understand guide to making market bags that helps you make a more sustainable future for you and your family.

About the Author

Teresa Peschel lives with her family, her dog Muffy, and a mostly useless cats in the Sweetest Place on Earth. She has long been interested in sustainability, resource depletion, and finding a balanced life, not too much and not too little. Why take more than you need when other people and animals need lives and space too?

See Teresa on Good Day PA!

Teresa went on ABC27’s “Good Day PA” show for two segments! She talked about how she came to sew cloth grocery bags and described the two types in the first segment, then she demonstrated how to use fabric origami with an iron to make the tailored bag.

Sample Pages

Sample the Book!

“Sewing Cloth Grocery Bags” began as a series of posts by Teresa Peschel. These are first drafts and bear little resemblance to the finished product, which have been edited, rewritten, and accompanied by illustrations.

You can certainly learn how to create your own market bags from these posts, but the book is much more effective.

This list is sorted in the order they were published, with the oldest one at the top.

If you want to read more about Teresa’s sewing projects, read the NotQuilt series over at Planetpeschel.

• Cloth Grocery Bags: Introduction
  We all use grocery bags. We buy our groceries, get them bagged, take them home and then, well, what do we do with those one-use bags? Paper grocery bags can be ...
• Choosing Grocery Bag Fabric
  What kind of fabric should you use to make cloth grocery bags? The easy answer is the cheap kind, but this is not completely accurate. The weight and sewability of ...
• Finding New and Used Fabric
  Where do you get the fabric? You start at any fabric store. Joann’s is a national chain, they run good sales, they have a clearance rack, and they provide discount ...
• Laying Out Totebag Panels and Gusset
  Now that we’ve chosen our fabric, let’s turn to the sizing of the totebag panels and gusset. I’ve found that the most effective grocery bags have panels that are taller than ...
• Washing fabric
  Should you wash the fabric you are going to use to make cloth grocery bags? As always, it seems, the answer is “it depends.” If the fabric is new, unstained, odor-free, ...
• How to make cloth grocery bags
  Today we learn how to make cloth grocery bags. I developed this list because I demand a lot from them: * They should last forever. * They should stand, at least a ...
• Sewing tools for cloth grocery bags
  Here are a few tools I recommend that will make sewing cloth grocery bags easier. (We should have pictures of the gadgets) A sewing machine, needles, pins, thread. You can sew ...
• Decorating Cloth Bags with Trim
  My grocery bag technique always uses a line of trim. This is not just because decorating cloth bags look nice. 1 The trim line fulfills several functions. Firstly, it covers up the ...
• Making Cloth Grocery Bag Handles
  In my continuing attempts to streamline my sewing procedures for cloth grocery bags, I decided a long time ago to stop using the fashion fabric to make the straps. Fabric ...
• Making Scrap Fabric Grocery Bags: The Frankenstein Option
  (This post is a draft from the upcoming book “Sewing Cloth Grocery Bags.” A complete list of the posts can be found here.) Frankenstein bags are what I call the ...
• Tips for Making Faster Grocery Bags
  If you want to make faster grocery bags, you’ll have to understand that you don’t have to perform every task. There are many points in the production process where no ...
• Home Production Sewing: An Introduction
  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 ...
• Tailored Cloth Grocery Bags: First Pass
  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 ...
• Sewing Cloth Grocery Bags: The Second pass
  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 ...
• Sewing Flanges on Cloth Grocery Bags
  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: ...
• Adding the Cloth Grocery Bags Trim
  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 ...
• Making Bag Straps for Cloth Grocery Bags
  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 ...
• Laying Out the Grocery Bag Straps
  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 ...
• Sewing down straps on the cloth grocery bags
  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 ...
• Buying Cloth Grocery Bag Material
  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 ...
• Tote Bag Case Study: Laying Out a Brown Floral and Paisley Cloth
  Tote Bag Case Study: Laying Out a Brown Floral and Paisley Cloth
• Cutting Tote Bag Fabric
  Good panel and gusset layout is critical for getting the most bags from the least amount of yardage. You start by choosing your size panels as they determine how much fabric ...
• Sizing and Cutting Large Pieces of Fabric.
  If you have a large piece of heavy fabric hiding in the stash, you can turn it into grocery bags. The length and width will determine how many bags you ...
• A New Way to Sew Cloth Grocery Bags
  We’re nearing the end of the book. This time, we’re going back to the beginning, to explain how Teresa learned to sew cloth grocery bags and the two styles she’ll ...
• Production Sewing of Cloth Grocery Bags
  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 ...
• Selling Crafts at Art Shows, part one: Primer
  I came up with the idea to sew and sell cloth grocery bags because we at Peschel Press wanted a space at the Hershey Winter Arts show (first Saturday in ...
• Selling Crafts at Art Shows, part two: Preparation
  Last week we launched the first post in a three-part series on selling handmade crafts. Although it describes how we sell our books and cloth grocery bags, the best practices ...
• Selling Crafts at Art Shows, part three: The Show Itself
  This is the third and final post on how Peschel Press handles selling at art shows, craft fairs, and book festivals. The series starts here then moves on to this ...
• Who Are Your Grocery Bag Competitors?
  If you’re making cloth grocery bags to sell, you need to know your grocery bag competitors. Why should a customer fork over $10 for a cloth bag? You have to ...
• Teresa to Teach How to Origami Grocery Bags
  I recently published my second book, and I’m really proud of it. “Sew Cloth Grocery Bags: Make Your Own in Quantity for Yourself, for Gifts, and for Sale” took several years ...