Twelve Days of Christmas: Day 11. Organic cotton produce bags.

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For the second year, we're bringing you a bunch of ideas for handmade Christmas gifts and also, lovely gifts for the makers in your life. (Or, gifts for you to hint loudly at with your loved ones!)

This isn't the prettiest of projects but it's a highly practical one, and something you might consider making for yourself, if not for gifts.

These soft, lightweight drawstring bags are intended to replace the throwaway produce bags you find at the supermarket. You know, the ones you put your individual types of fruit and veg in, and things from the bulk bins? Usually they're plastic bags on a big roll but our marvellous local Foodland also has brown paper bags for the organic produce. Whilst paper is preferable to plastic, it still seems a bit wasteful to be using and tossing (or recycling) quite a few of these bags each week.

To make a useful replacement, we thought a bag needed to be:
- lightweight (won't add weight to what you're paying for, and also easy to pack)
- washable and not show stains
- natural fibres
- very quick and easy to make!

Enter our super-soft and lightweight organic cotton voile in black, and cotton piping cord!

I went to good old Google and looked up drawstring bag tutorials. The one I found was so simple and clear, I really feel there's no need to reinvent the wheel. So without further ado I direct you to this excellent post at 'Diary of a Quilter'.
Oh hello, it's those tomato pincushions again!
From a 50cm piece of fabric at 150cm wide, and two metres of piping cord, I made two bags approximately 32 x 42cm each.

Once I made these up, I was rather thrilled with how quickly they came together and I wanted to sit down and make drawstring bags out of all the fabrics. At the very least, I will probably whip up a few more of these and be able to feel very well-prepared next time I shop for fruit and veg!

- Jane & Fiona xx


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