Grocery Bag Holder from a KitchenTowel

I bought these adorable sets of 3 kitchen towels from Target this past Christmas. I went back and bought like 3-4 packages of them. They were that Dwell line, which I loved. They only cost  
$ 2.74 (dontcha love when those Tar-Gey prices end in 3's and 4's?) Only thing is, they aren't very practical as towels because they aren't very absorbant. But after a few hundred washes they are OK I guess. But the real value in them is what you can MAKE from them!

I wish I had bought more of this black-white-cream-celery color theme. I ended up making my living room pillows with those! But that's another post!

You know the big ole' mess of plastic grocery bags we all have?* I almost broke down and bought an tacky  rooster print one of those bag holders at the 99 cent store, but then the light bulb went off and I thought of this project. I just winged it.

Its very easy and you could probably use a glue gun if you don't want to haul out a sewing machine...

First, hem the top and bottom leaving a wide margin ( I used about 1 1/2- 2 inches) so you can lay a ribbon or a string inside of it as you sew it, loose. I didn't want to use elastic, it didn't seem worth the hassle--ok I'm lazy and it's what I had within arm's reach.

Then make sure the ribbon's loose in there so you can pull it tight (the first time I sewed the ribbon to them hem...)

Now, right sides together, and sew up the side, leaving it unsewn (is that even a word??) where the stringy-ribbon area is...like so:

Tighten up the bottom string/ribbon so one bag at a time can be pulled out. Knot it and trim off the excess. Tight then top only to the point where you can easily add more to it. You may want to add a little tab whereby you can hang it on a hook, I just used the extra ribbon I pulled as a tab.

Cute and functional, no? I probably should have shortened the length--it's so long! I can fit a few thousand bags in there!

* and, yes, I DO use my reusable grocery bags...about 55.5% of the time. Why is it when I run out to the store I forget to put that bag in my van? Or it's in my van, and I end up taking Hubs car? I will get on board with this soon, I promise. And we DO use these...for curbside doggie clean up, wet bathing suits, and laundry bags when we go on vacation among other things.

Make it a great day!

Ann