Craft-tastic Tuesday - Plastic Bag Storage

My big brother and my big sister took possession of their first houses at the end of June so I decided I had better get in the sewing room and make up some kind of housewarming gift. It took a bit to figure out just what to sew, but then I settled on plastic bag holders. Just what you need to keep your kitchen organized. Next I might need to design one for storing all the reusable bags (that I always forget to use so the boys just use them for going to the pool and sleep overs).

Anyhow, here is my project complete with photo evidence of my oops's.

This project is basically a tube with a handle and an elastic casing on both ends. Decide how long you want it and how wide and calculate the size you will need or just use my measurments.

This project requires about half a yard of fabric, half a yard of 3/8" braided elastic as well as basic sewing notions.

1. Measure and cut your material. I decided that I wanted mine to be about 24 inches finished and 12 inches around. My handle is 10 inches long and 1.5" wide. I used half inch inseams and my casings are half an inch as well. So the two pieces of fabric I cut are 26" x 13" and 11" x 4".
2. Fold your handle piece in half lengthwise, right sides together and press. Sew along the long side and then turn right side out, press and top stitch.
3. Fold your large piece in half lengthwise and pin, stitch along the edge fitting your handle in a few inches from the top. This is where I made my mistake. I did this step before I even created the handle so I had to go back and rip out lots of stitches. I also chose to complete this step with the serger but the sewing machine would work just fine. If you don't want to leave exposed raw edges this would be a great place for a french seam.
4. Fold both ends in a quarter inch and press and and then another half inch and press again. This will be your elastic casing. Sew these leaving a two inch gap open on both ends.
5. Mark your elastic at the 8" mark and using a safety pin feed it through the casing. Overlap by an inch and stitch the elastic to secure it. close the casing and repeat on the other end.

 Now you have a completed bag holder. Very quick, very simple and very useful.

 This is the extra work I had to do to fit my handle in to my bag holder. I found that the embroidery scissors worked better than a seam ripper when it came to the serger.