Plastic Bags into Shopping Bag - Mammy Made

Adele is here from Mammy Made, today...

Hi everyone. I'm Adele and I live in England with my two gorgeous babies, Leyla who is 4 and Naomie who is 2. I am so excited to be contributing to Inspiration Cafe again today!

I usually blog over at Mammy Made. I like to write about crafting, cooking and homeschooling, although I am only homeschooling part time at the minute. I have tons of tutorials on there so come by and say hi, I’d love to see you! I am also currently blogging about growing vegetables in my small back yard so come and check that out :)

This month I am going to show you how I made this reusable shopping bag out of plastic carrier bags.

It didn't take anywhere near as long as I thought it would and used up a lot of bags that would've otherwise probably ended up as waste! And it's pretty cute aswell. Bonus.

You will need: 

8mm (or bigger if you have it) metal crochet hook, tons and tons of plastic bags, cut into 1/2" strips and looped together to make ''plarn''. There is a good tutorial for how to do that here.

Bag:
1. ch3, join with slst in 1st ch to make a circle (it will be very tight but that's good)
2. ch3, work 9dcs in circle, join with sl st to top of ch3 (10)
3. ch3, turn, dc in same st, work 2dcs in each st around, join with slst in top of ch3 (20)
4. ch3, turn, dc in same st, *work 1dc in next st, work 2dcs in next st* rep around, join with slst in top of ch3 (30)
5. ch3, turn, dc in same st, *work 2dcs in next st, work 2dcs in next st* rep around, join with slst in top of ch3 (40)
6. ch3, turn, dc in same st, *work 3dcs in next st, work 2dcs in next st* rep around, join with slst in top of ch3 (50)
7-14. ch3, turn, sk st at base of ch3, dc around, join with sl st in top of ch3 (I worked the last 2 rounds in a different coloured plarn but this is optional)

15. bind off and weave in ends

Handle:

16. rejoin plarn a few stitches right of the seam (with back of stitches facing), ch3, sk st at base of ch3 then dc in next 3sts (4)

17-29. ch1, turn, sk st at base of ch3, dc across (4)

30. attach handle to opposite side of bag, making sure it's not twisted, bind off and weave in ends

Flower:
31. ch3, join with slst in 1st ch to make a circle (it will be very tight but that's good)
32. ch1, *sc in loop, ch4* rep x 6, join with sl st in 1st sc (6 loops)
33. ch1, turn, work (sc, hdc, dc, dc, hdc, sc) in each loop around, join with sl st in 1st sc, bind off and weave in ends

I tied my flower onto the join of my handle since it looked quite obvious. I joined mine with single crochet stitch, so this step can be skipped if you just stitch it on as normal. I was getting tired though, so I went for the easy (and cute!) way out :P

Done!

I guess mine turned out a little strange looking since I wanted the handle to be short enough to hang it off my pushchair hook, without having the bottom scrape off the floor like most of my other bags do! If you wanted to use it as a proper shoulder bag, you'd just make the strap longer, or attach two straps - one on each side of the bag :)

I hope you all enjoyed this tutorial. Thank you so much to everyone behind Inspiration Cafe for letting me contribute again. It's been fun!