How to Make Your Own Tote Bags

Reusable tote bags are useful for everything from toting groceries to moving a household or packing for an overnight trip. Some stores will even give you a small discount or refund if you bring your own reusable bag instead of using their plastic or paper bags. If you'd like to make your own tote bags, here's how.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Sturdy fabric
• Scissors
• Straight pins
• Needle and thread
• 1-inch webbing

1. Decide how large you'd like your finished tote bag to be.

2. Cut out two pieces of fabric or burlap bagging that are as big as you want the finished bag to be, plus two inches. So if your bag will be 20 inches by 20 inches on each side when complete, you'll want to cut your fabric to be 22 inches by 22 inches.

3. Place the outside or finished sides of the fabric pieces together and pin them in place with straight pins at each corner and spaced along the bottom, left and right sides to keep them from sliding. Leave the top of the bag open.

4. Sew the fabric pieces together along the left, bottom, and right sides, working one inch in from the edge of the fabric. Remove the straight pins as you stitch past them; they're no longer necessary.

5. Fold the top of the bag down over itself one inch, then stitch this in place to hem the top opening of the bag. Make sure to stitch through only one side of the bag as you hem all the way around; don't sew the top closed by stitching both pieces of fabric together.

6. Cut two lengths of 1-inch webbing to the desired length of handles, plus two inches for each piece. So if you want handles that measure 10 inches long, cut each piece of webbing to be 12 inches long.

7. Stitch the webbing handles in place, one on each side of the bag's "top," with each end of the webbing overlapping the bag's top hem by one inch. Stitch over them several times to make sure they're strong enough to hold any load you might put in the bag. After you're done, you should have two U-shaped handles, one on each side of the bag.

8. Turn the bag inside out. The seams and seam allowances will be hidden on the inside of the bag, as will most of the handle stitching.

Tips & Warnings

• Make sure to select fabric that is sturdy enough to hold the sorts of loads you plan on putting into the bags. Use the same color thread as the fabric to help hide your stitching. You can paint or draw any decorations you like on the outside of the bag. Use fabric paints or permanent markers for the best results.