I've been meaning to make some heavy duty grocery bags for years. Every time we go to the bulk store (Costco/BJs) and we would struggle to get all the giant-sized mouth washes and monster boxes of pasta into the house (they don't give you bags), I would say, "I'm going to make us some grocery bags out of that denim I bought years ago."
Yeah, right.
Well, now that we don't have a car we *needed* to have some reusable bags that could take some abuse. The ready-made reusable bags seem to be light-weight, which is great for carrying around for spur of the moment shopping, but we like to *really* stock up when we shop. That means our bags need to stand up to being chock full of sharp-cornered boxes and heavy jugs of orange juice. They also need to weather the trunks of taxis or being set on the ground while we take a breather on the way home if we're walking.
The denim was a perfect solution. It's heavy duty, washable, and will stand up to years of abuse. I made the handles so they are long enough to fit over your shoulder, but short enough that if I'm holding the straps in my hands that the bag isn't scraping along the ground.
The first hem around the top was the zig-zag stitch to catch the inside raw edge.. For some reason, zig-zag stitching always looks really cheap to me. I put a straight stitch on each side of the zig-zag and I like it a lot better now. I left the bottom of the straps raw, so they are going to fray. I was afraid of sewing through too many layers of denim. But, I have to say,
my trusty sewing machine did a great job. It went through 6 layers of denim like it was butter.
I made two of them and I think they are going to be plenty big for our monthly-ish* shopping trips. I might add some ties to the inside tops to help keep them closed, especially if we're going to put them in the trunk of a taxi.
I've seen those obnoxious Whole Foods bags that say "I used to be a plastic bottle" on the side ... which is highly incongruous when you see the cars people drive to Whole Foods to use their one little reusable bag. Those bags totally irk me. I've been joking that I wanted to stitch "I used to be a baby seal" on the sides of our new bags, but apparently it's bad enough that they are covered in flowers.
*We get all our staples like pasta, rice, etc. and all the heavy stuff on the big trips that we do every 4-6 weeks. Then, on the way home from work a couple nights a week, I'll stop and get fresh vegetables to use for the next several dinners. We did it this way before we got rid of the car, but it's a perfect set up now that grocery shopping is such a hassle.