Thursday, April 26, 2012

Reused cloth bags

 My friend Naomi owns this great little farm and garden store in SE Portland called Naomi's Organic Farm Supply store and she recently spoke with me about making cloth bags for her store, with her name stamped on the front. Great advertisement for her as well as being a much needed creative outlet for yours truly. This is what I've come up so far...
I really dig reusing while conserving both our economic and environmental resources. Luckily we live just a few miles away from The Bins. The Bins is a Goodwill Outlet store, we just call it The Bins because everything is in these 20ft long bins; you've got to dig for your treasure. It usually stinks in The Bins and we've found some pretty gnarly stuff that I'd be remiss to describe here, in amongst some retro jewels. It's proven to be an excellent source of random fabrics.
 I found this great old skirt with little mirrors along the bottom that I was able to cut up and use in two different bags. Nik stops by on his way home occasionally and he's picked me up lots of old doilies and dishrags that I mash up and use as fun little add-ons. Each bag is reversible and super sturdy. The idea is that they'll eventually be used as grocery/farm bags. 
 In total, I've made maybe 10 prototype bags (as I had to write up my own pattern) and 4 finished bags. And it only took me 3 weeks! I'm sure I'll get faster and more proficient as time flows along.
P.S. I thought I'd also throw this one in. Another friend just had a babe and I thought, what better then a reversible baby bag with tons of pockets and a little secret on the bottom of the inside? Nothing! So Josh and I whipped this bad boy up. I kinda wish I could keep it now.

3 comments:

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  3. it is a good thing that those bags are made of used clothes. Those patterns are really lovely. I wouldn't have known if you haven't tell. Cool page.

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