The Bag Lady

My husband and I have had for some time the intention of taking reusable bags to the grocery store. We approve of recycling, the plastic bags take an enormous amount of time to break down in landfill. However, our Yankee upbringing revolts at the idea of actually *buying* bags for this purpose. Certainly buying bags printed with the logo of the grocery store- paying for the privilege of giving them free advertising while *saving* them money for bags- just struck us as wrong.

So I looked around and found a bunch of nifty looking bag patterns, and have been considering sewing or knitting bags. Because of the aforementioned cost issue, I wanted to use relatively inexpensive materials, preferably something I already owned. Sewing seamed like my best bet (sorry, couldn't resist!), since I have a lot of leftover fabric from various other projects.

Then I went out to the sun porch to open the door so the cat could watch wildlife through the screen. Woats is an avid watcher of wildlife- but, as I was saying, I went out to the porch and what should I see but? A bag. A cloth bag, suitable for groceries, carrying of. I'd gotten it as a freebie at a trade show. And that got me thinking. So I spent half an hour rummaging around in closets, trunks, boxes not yet unpacked from one move or another. And I'm not done- I'm quite sure that I'll come up with a few more. But my haul?

Six cloth bags. Six. Four of them were empty and not even in use. Two from conventions, two employer freebies, the trade show one, and a gorgeous bag I received as a gift and have never used. One was attached to a green and white beach towel- another corporate freebie. That was doubly useless, since the towel was awkward to use with the bag attached, and almost nothing would fit in the bag besides the towel. I've detached the towel for general bath and beach usage, and will resew the bag seams to use for groceries.



I've pushed any bag-knitting or sewing plans back down in the queue. Nor shall I seek to purchase cloth bags. Clearly what I need is to mount an expedition into the farthest corners of my home, probe the depths of the closets and pry off the lids off the remaining unlabeled packed boxes. I wonder if I've got a pith helmet around here somewhere?