Hello from the glorious suburbs of Belfast!

[Scrake]

Hi, I'm very much new at this self-sufficiency / green lark - improving from previously only recycling glass. We have a compost heap now (courtesy of a £5 offer from Belfast City Council) and that makes a real difference to the amount we throw away. In a student house, the empties (beer bottles and tins) do mount up very quickly, and we don't have kerbside boxes yet. So recycling those takes a bit more organisation / effort, but I'm perservering!

Am also trying to remember to carry a bag when I go shopping, but this is proving suprisingly difficult to remember. I knit, so if I make myself a pretty shopping bag like this one perhaps I'll carry it more.

[Chickpea]

Hi Scrake!

I knitted myself a shopping bag out of old carrier bags. I cut them into strips about 1/2" wide then knitted them into two squares about 18" square, then I knitted a 6" wide gusset 54" long and sewed it all together with some nylon kitchen string. I made handles from a couple of old bits of washing line and hey presto! a jazzy stripy shopping bag for nothing.

People often say to me I should make them and sell them, since they cost nothing I should turn a great profit. But it took me 10 hours or something of knitting so I'd have to charge £55 per bag just to make minimum wage. When I offer to sell my bag for £55 everyone turns me down. Odd, isn't it?

[Scrake]

Oh that's a very good idea! Is the knitted fabric quite stiff, though? I was hoping for something I could fold up very small (like the string bag I linked to)

Now I'll have to knit both... ;-)

If you don't mind another question: how did you cope with the (presumably numerous) ends. Weave them in? Leave them hanging?

[Shirley]

Hi Scrake

Welcome to the site... I've got a pattern to make a crocheted cotton bag... just need to get the cotton!!

You could of course just get a selfsufficientish bag

I've seen the pattern for the carrier bag knitting but haven't tried it... I think that's another winter project!!

[Chickpea]

It's not stiff stiff, but it's too stiff to scrunch up like a string bag. It does have groovy stripes though - I got quite obsessive about seeking out nice-coloured carrier bags.

One fun thing about it - when I tell people what it's made of they invariably go "Ooh! Yes, look there's a T***o bag, and that one's Netto, and that one's from Next" for about five minutes.

[The Chili Monster]

Hi Scrake

[ina]

Hi Scrake, and welcome!

That bag looks brilliant - but I just realised that I still haven't mastered the British knitting terminlogy. No idea what all those letters and numbers mean.

Anyway, I've got so many shoppingbags, I really shouldn't start another project. Have a lot of old clothes, jeans and other strong material, that's still good enough for "patchwork" bags, too.

[Wombat]

G'Day Scrake and welcome to the site!

Nev

[Andy Hamilton]

good to see you are another one who is not using plastic carrier bags, welcome to the site!