Going Green~Made Reusable Mesh Produce Bags

So , in my efforts to go Greener, I mentioned a couple of posts back that I had found some mesh produce bags for sale at amazon.com. Liked these.  You take these to the grocery store instead of using their plastic bags in the producesection.  They are very light, adding only minimal amount of weight (but you can take your produce out of the bag for weighing also)

 

Well, instead of buying them, I went to the fabric store and bought mosquito netting for $3.99/ yd, buying a yard of white and a yard of olive green.  Then I bought 7 yards of cording which was $1.19 yd.  By now, you can see that I have already spent more than what I could have bought them for.  Being emotionally involved in this project now, I do like mine better, tho I don’t have the cute side tabs on my bags.  BUT! I do have Olive Green.

I ended up making 7 bags for $15.  (Amazon has 5 for $11.00, or is it $11.99?)

 

One of my bags is two toned, having used what was left of each color to make the 7th bag (I had no waste, either).  They are 17 inches long by about 15 inches wide.

When the cording didn’t handle nicely as the drawstring, I found some ~*PINK*~ Nylon shoe laces (swoon) in a drawer and slid them through 4 drawstring sleeves. I used a length of white cotton yarn for one drawstring, but I’m really not satisfied with the thickness.  Maybe I’ll braid a cord out of it. 

SO, if you want to make them for the fun of it, don’t buy cording as it drives up the cost.  Braid some lengths of cotton yarn (comes in a ball for about $1.30-ish).  Use any 42-in+ shoe laces you may have laying around, but be smart about this, please.  We don’t want you or your big-footed teenage sons falling out of your shoes.  *;-.)   (I know I have now taken all the fun out of it)

Just my Green 2c

 
Nice, yes?