bulk food

03.07.2016

0800

Materials:

Bedding flat and fitted sheets
Bedding pillowcases
Shoelace/rope to use as drawstrings for the bags

Tools:

Sewing machine
Sewing kit

I use old bed sheets and old pillowcases to make produce bags with drawstrings to close the top openings. For this project, I used four pillowcases and two bed sheets. The weight of each piece of sheet varies in thickness, so I know that the tare weight will differ. This project does take a little bit of time, but the payout is immensely satisfying.

To size them up, I first divided a pillow case into quarters and I use extra shoelaces to make the drawstrings. I like to have at least two different sized bags so that I can use one size for my staple bulk shopping and the others to be used for standard bulk shopping. The pillowcase that will be divided into quarters would be the smaller size and I would half another pillowcase to be the larger bag template. I only need four large bags so the rest will be the standard bulk bag size.

The easiest and quickest way to finish this project in a short amount of time is to first measure out the size of each fabric piece, but measure out the pieces so that the fold of the fabric will be on the left or right side of the rectangular template. The reason why I recommend this is that when you sew, you can make one continuous stitch line without ending. If you create the fold of the fabric on the bottom, you have to sew both sides with separate stitch lines. Understandably, if you end up with very linear fabric pieces once you measure out your sheets, having two stitch lines will be inevitable. Keep in mind, the top is left alone for the drawstring pocket.

I usually measure the pocket for the drawstring at 1/2″ width and I pin it in place using ball head straight pins. I then sew the pocket for the drawstring and leave the ends open for the drawstring to be fed through. Then for each fabric piece, I fold the opening edge and bottom edge in about 1/2″ and pin it with a few ball head straight pins. You can also fold this hem over once more to secure the hem as well. Once all of the bags are sewn, I tie off all of the thread ends so that the ends don’t dangle and get caught up in the washing machine. Then I take each bag and feed the drawstrings through each pocket using a small safety pin. Once the drawstrings are fed through their pockets, I tie off the ends so that the drawstring won’t slip out.

Because I measured out my fabric into two basic sizes, I take one bag of each fabric type and size and bring it to the grocery store to record the tare weight. My tare weight for my standard bulk bag is 0.07 lbs and for the larger bag it’s 0.12 lbs. I usually write my tare weight towards the top of the bags due to the fact that cashiers tend to look for twist ties there. However, don’t write the tare weight too close to the very top of the bag, being that once you close the bag opening with the drawstring, the writing gets somewhat lost in the folds of the bag. I usually write the tare weight about 3″ from the top of my bags. I use LYRA Aqua Color Water-Soluble Wax Crayons to write on my bags and I bring them with me to record the PLU codes (Price Look Up codes) right on the bags.

From the four pillowcases and two bed sheets I used in this project, I made 57 bags. I also made two tiny little bags from the leftover fabric pieces, because I really didn’t want to add it to my trash bin. I hope this post helps for those who are looking to make your own produce bags. This was a two day project and although I was exhausted after finishing it, I was beyond ecstatic when these bags were put to use. These bags are used everywhere around my house from using them for lunch bags, to containing my cat’s toys and even using them in the kitchen to keep items organized. So utilize that sewing machine and I hope you enjoy your new DIY bags as much as I do.

01.17.2016

0646

Before I went zero waste, I used to buy anything bottled, use sponges in the sink, bought spices packaged in plastic bags and also in glass jars, and the worst culprit of all was that I bought packaged foods.

Kitchen Now:

Whole Foods Market: Bulk balsamic vinegar, Bragg’s Liquid Amnios, raw honey, candy, oats, black beans, whole wheat flour, cane sugar, cranberries, spices and coffee.
Philz Coffee: Loose leaf green tea and chamomile tea (and coffee if I want Philz coffee each morning)
Kitchen Items: 3 pots & pans, 1 grill, 1 set of basic flatware, 1 set of basic kitchen utensils, 1 hand held mixer, 2 silicone bakeware pans, 1 dinnerware set, 1 set of mixing bowls, 1 set of Pyrex storage containers
Dining: Cloth napkins and kitchen towels, Tea infusers, re-useable wine corks, wind-up flash light and I now compost everything
Recyclable products: Soups, baking soda, and occasionally wine

Living Room Now:

Giant/small towels as floor mats and door mats, I hate that the rubber backing on standard door mats falls apart after exposure to weathering.
I buy digital books or I check out books from the library (Fortunately I bought an iPad when I started grad school so it came in handy)
I use an indoor air filtering plant to liven up the space as well as making it functional as well.
I limit the amount of batteries I need/use. I replaced my flashlight with a wind up flashlight and in total I have 3 items that uses batteries. In addition to that, I limit the size of batteries to AAA or AA (it’s really not necessary to have a library of them and it makes attaining them harder when traveling).
Christmas bag: Flour sack towels (28″x 29″) and bandannas for wrapping gifts. If you wrap gifts using basic box wrapping techniques and then tuck the ends within the folds, you can always secure the wrapping. Or check out Furoshiki and check out the techniques they list and their products they have available.
1. Here are some examples from the website:

Office Now:

I use refillable ball point pens and lead and replace them in my pen/pencil unit
Due to my profession, moving away from rendering materials is quite difficult so I do use colored pencils and a lead holder as well as a Faber-Castell kneaded eraser. (The kneaded eraser doesn’t slough off eraser bits)
I used to keep my work saved on re-writable CDs but now I have a 1 TB external hard drive. I also utilize my emails and use my clouds to store data.
I use a stapleless stapler so now I don’t buy staples for refilling and it’s very efficient
I’ve opted out of junk mail as much as I can but some mail still gets through, when it does, I use the back of the one sided pages as scratch paper (I can’t remember when the last time I bought paper).
Recyclable products: Envelopes, stamps and Christmas cards… There are still items I value and I can’t seem to stray from and hand writing is one of them. I value a hand written letter, the ink/lead on paper denotes a moment in time- a moment in time when the writer touched the document as well as the receiver.

This is an over all view of what my life inventory looks like now. It makes life a lot easier when I have less to worry about. Majority of my time, I think I’d prefer eating food or going on an adventure. Once I got rid of a lot of my items, I noticed that I sleep better now, my stress level seems to lessen because there’s less upkeep with my life. It’s strange how when I used to think of hanging out with my friends meant that we would go shopping (and not window shopping), and now that shopping really isn’t a part of my life- I had to search to find what to replace it with. Even if I had the choice to document my life in photographs, I think there’s still a pressure to do so- sometimes, the memories are enough to take away from that experience.