One of my favorite things about summertime is the availability of local fruits and veggies right around the corner at my Farmer’s Market. I also love that I now have a fun bag to bring along that lets me show off my colorful fruit and veggie purchases. Best of all, it’s made from an upcycled t-shirt and costs very little to make.

Materials:

• XL T-Shirt
• 2 Six Inch Brass Rings
• Yarn
• Hot Glue

How to Make It:

To make the handles:

I decorated my brass rings with a “mermaid bead” technique with some scrap yarn. You can leave your brass rings alone if you like and skip the following steps.

Tie your yarn in a knot around your brass rings. It doesn’t need to look pretty, we’ll hide the ends with the actual body of the bag.

Hold down the short end of your knot against the ring so that you can wrap your yarn around the brass ring and the excess yarn. Make a loop like the number 4 with your yarn and pull the tail through the center of your brass ring.

Wrap the yarn around and over the ring, and then under the “4” loop that you created.

Pull it tight. Continue with this pattern until you have covered the entire ring. If you run out of yarn. Leave a small tail with your original yarn, make another knot around the tail and the ring and continue just as you started.

Once you’ve reached the other end, tie another knot, and reinforce with a small dab of hot glue. Cut off any excess strands of yarn.

To make the t-shirt bag:

Cut your shirt straight across from the bottom of each sleeve so you have a wide tube to work with.

Cut the tube into 10 strips. They don’t need to be perfect.

Stretch out each strip.

Cut one end of each strip so you’ll have 10 long strands of t-shirt material.

Wrap the uncut end of 5 strips around each of your brass rings.

Take the strip on the far right and place it horizontally across all other strips so that you can get a secure knot at the top of your bag. Wrap each strand around your horizontal strip 1 time, as described for the horizontal double half hitch knot in the Macrame Wall Hanging post.

This step isn’t 100% necessary, but it will make the whole thing look a little cleaner, and helps to connect the two handles together. The downside is that it does make the opening to your bag a little smaller. If you would like to skip the horizontal knot step, you can.

Grab 2 neighboring strands and tie them in a knot about 2 – 3 inches from the top knots.

Continue across until each strand is tied.

Leave the first strip open and tie the next 2 neighboring strips in a knot about 2 – 3 inches from your first knots. Continue to the end, and tie together the last strip with the first one you skipped.

The space between your knots is going to depend on the size of the items you will be carrying in the bag. If you buy a lot of heads of lettuce or large things you want to carry, you’ll want your knots about 2 -3 inches apart. If you want to buy small fruits, try knots 1 -2 inches apart.

Continue these last 2 steps until your bag has reached the desired length.

Gather all ends of your strips together and tie your yarn tightly into a knot just below your last knots. Add some hot glue to reinforce and wrap the yarn around a few times very tightly. I repeated these steps a few times because I wanted a pop of color and a strong base for the bag.

Your upcycled bag is all set! Head to the Farmer’s Market and grab some local fruits and veggies!