Fruit and veg stowe bags

I am frustrated by the many plastic sacs that are left when buying fruit and vegetables. Even if we have got a reuse sac for our errands, the different sorts of fruits and vegetables have to be in little sacs not to get mush when arriving at home.

I already had collected a plastic sac with the intention to open it and use it as a pattern. Eventually, I sewed the small Grainline Patterns stowe bag pattern, printed at 80 percent. 

Together with Mel, we had bought synthetic lining for this issue. It is very lightweight and slippery.

Because I didn't want to sew pockets, I started with step 5 following the well illustrated instructions. I made 1" self bias binding (out of a square of 16,5 x16,5" or 42 x 42cm). For future sacs, I will use wider binding.

Other than the instructions, I sewed the seams as french seams: right sides out 1/8" SA, then left side  turned out 1/4" SA using some wonderclips. I used my quilting (1/4") presser foot.

I also folded the bias binding in half lengthwise like binding for quilts, then sewed the long raw edges on on the left side, graded the SA, turned the binding out and sewed it on at the right side. I didn't use any pins but only a wonderclip 4cm at the beginning to guide the slippery fabrics under the presser foot.

At step 13 I was a little puzzled. You have to fold the base seam (1 3/4") and to fix this pleat.

It is a cute little sac. You can knot the handles after paying the fruits or vegetables and open the sac at home easily. It is hovever quite some work (binding!) to finish it. We will see how many sacs I will be able to sew and how practical they will be! 

Today, Mel has posted her many sacs she has already sewn. She has made me a very cute lined one for collecting the future sacs, have a look at her blog!

How would you buy your vegetables? I am curious to know!

SaSa