No sew tee shirt bag

Well, my tee shirt bag is now finished and I shall be using it quite a lot this summer. I made it using the methods which my mother taught me. So here goes. Once your old tee shirts have been gathered together, cut them as you want to. There are many methods, and the one I use is the continuous vertical cuts. First of all the needle size is up to you. For my bag I used needles which my dad made for my mum, and these measure 3/4" in diameter ( no metric then!)

...decide how big you want your bag to be. I just did mine by eye, no tape measure required. I worked on 25 stitches and continued to knit one piece, checking by folding every so often, if it was going to be long enough once it was folded. My piece measured 28" and then I cast off.

....The next step was to determine where the straps were going. For this I counted in five stitches from one edge, then using 6mm needles I picked up and knit 5 stitches. Working on these five stitches continue to knit until you have made the strap as long as you want it. The ones on my bag are 24" long. I used two colours on my straps because I wanted the random effect and didn't have any more of those coloured tee shirts left!

Once you have the desired length of strap, on the same side you have been knitting, at the other end, count in five stitches, pick them up and knit them with the 5 which you have on your needle. Be careful not to twist your knitting because you don't want a twisted strap. Cast them off and that's one side done. Line up the bag and knit the straps for the other side in the same way. Now to tackle the sides. Once again I used 6mm needles. Turning the bag inside out I lined up the sides and folded in half. I pinned and then to knit the two sides together I placed my needle through stitches on both edges of the fold, knitting two stitches and then casting one off ( as you would normally do) all the way along, until you come to the last stitch. Knit this off, leave a longer thread and weave this into the knitting. Matching the opposite side pick up and knit the same way. You could crochet the two edges together it would be just as easy. After much thought I decided that I wasn't going to make any flowers for this bag, and so I just decorated it with vintage buttons, ( of which I have thousands!). This is my finished bag...

.....I've already used it. The best thing about it is that it was made by me my way. My dad used to say that in any sort of craft there are no rules just guidelines. That is so true. So, if you are about to embark on a project just do it, and do it your way!