clipped from: www.pieandcoffee.org   

How to make a canvas bag

Forget about “Paper or plastic?” It’s time to make your own canvas shopping bag.

Materials: We used unbleached cotton canvas, which you can buy or order at your local fabric store. Organic cotton would be even cooler. We used oil-based ink, because we wanted to make bags that people could machine-wash. Non-toxic ink would be even cooler.

  • Cutting the cloth: The cloth comes folded in half. Cut a 23″ wide piece of the folded cloth. Cut a 4″x5.5″ rectangle out of each of the two corners of the cloth that are along the fold. The 5.5″ side of the rectangle is parallel to the fold.

    Now, unfold the cloth.

  • Printing your design: We used a linoleum block.

  • After the printed image has dried, fold the cloth “inside out,” so that the image is not visible.

  • Sew the edges together that will be the sides of the bag. Don’t sew the part where you cut out the little rectangles. I used a flat-felled seam (howto sew it) with a 1/2″ seam allowance.