Turn Thrift Store Jeans Into Reusable Shopping Bags

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A friend asked me to make her six reusable shopping bags out of recycled jeans. She gave me a link to a video tutorial she found — check it out here.

The instructions are very clear and straightforward and the bags are so simple to make. The only point where I was confused for a moment was where the lady says to measure the width of the pant leg and multiply it by 2 and use that dimension for the height of the bag. Well, if the pant leg wasn’t cut open at that point, you would multiply by 2. Since the pant leg IS cut open, you wouldn’t want to double it; you must use the same dimension for the height of the bag. If this isn’t making any sense, watch the video tutorial. Then you’ll see what I mean (I hope).

I only strayed from the directions to make the bags flat-bottomed. I squared the bottom of each bag by by sewing diagonally across each bottom corner at 2-1/2 to 3-inches in from the corner.

I got all the jeans from the thrift store. They were $3.50 each. I chose pretty wide legs, at least 9 inches was the minimum width I brought home.