Grocery Bag Holder Tutorial

inspired me to create THIS for my mom for Mother's Day.
Since then, my own collection of plastic sacks have been piling up:
So it was time to make myself a plastic sack holder.

First, cut strips of fabric as equally as you can. (I didn't measure anything...just eyeballed it, but it's up to you.) If you are the kind that has to measure everything, Make It and Love It suggests that each strip be approximately 20 inches long and 3 1/2 inches wide. (Do 9 strips with those measurements.)

Then you need to sew all the strips together so that they look like this from the back:

And this from the front:
Then fold it in half (so the inside is facing the outside.) And pin them together like this:
Then sew it up the side and flip it back inside out to make sure it looks good:
Now you just need to add elastic to the bottom and the top:
The elastic for the top of your bag should be about 1/4 inch wide, and about 11 inches long, and for the bottom of your bag, it should be more like 1/4 inch wide and 6 or 7 inches long. Just sew a casing for it (if you want details on how to do that, click here and read Make It and Love It's post. She is more detailed on this part of the tutorial.)

After you sew the elastic on, the last thing to do is to sew a ribbon on the top of the bag so it can hang from a hook or a door.

Then stuff it with bags, and it should look something like this:
It took me about an hour to put this together. (For some of you more experienced sewers it might take less time.) When I made my original one for my mom, it took me more like 3 hours (it was practically my first sewing project...) so if you are a first-time sewer plan on investing a few hours. :)

Good luck!