Market Bags for Kenya Help
Did you know that as of August of 2017, Kenya has banned the use of ALL single-use plastic shopping bags?
I really wish the US would follow suit; I'm appalled by the amount of single-use plastics I can't avoid bringing home from the grocery store each week, despite having been using reusable shopping bags for years.
While I'm in full support of eliminating plastic bags because of their terrible effect on the environment, I also understand that banning the cheapest way for people to carry their goods home from the market can take an economic toll, especially in third-world and developing countries. I am really excited that our quilting group has teamed up with another of the church's groups, a well-known non-profit called KenyaHELP.
KenyaHELP was originally established to raise money to sponsor school tuition for Kenyan youth. With the advent of the plastic bag ban, however, they've added another facet that provides durable, beautiful and hand-crafted market bags for the Kenyan families they've worked with. Our KenyaHELP ambassadors reached out to the quilting group to create as many market bags as possible.
We were provided simple instructions to create 18" or 21" market bags, although there were no real rules besides being durable, washable and preferably bright and colorful. I really got on a kick and ended up making seven of them right off the bat (plus one from a friend).
One of the ladies in the quilt group had brought in a huge pile of upholstery fabric remnants to play with, from which most of my bags were constructed. I also dug into my own stash for a few... you might recognize this green pixel camo from my Hipster Hound doggy travel bed project.
While the instructions called for basic boxed-corner totes, I opted to add some fun details to many of my bags, especially pockets. I most cases, I just used up whatever fabric I had left, after cutting out the body of the bag and handles, to create the pocket, so some of them are a little oddly shaped (like this umm... wine pocket?).
I also played around with the cuffs of the bags, sometimes putting the them on the outside as a decorative element, or using the fringe-y salvage edges and the "wrong" sides of the upholstery fabric for visual interest. I even used variegated thread on one of the bags for funsies, and it turned out super cute.
I think my favorite bag is this black and white striped one. I pieced the fabric together so the stripes intersected at a 90-degree angle, then placed the pocket where the diagonal line cut through the center. It just makes a really fun optical illusion type thing, and it reminds me of a zebra. I didn't have a lot of this fabric, so I used poly webbing leftover from my Adopt Me dog vests to make the straps. Good grief. Another really old project needing an update. I do finish stuff, I swear!
Anyways... I finally got around to taking pictures of these last week (after they'd been riding around in the back of my Subaru for about six months), and dropped them off at the church to pack up and ship to Africa. It feels good to finally send something off to make a difference, no matter how small.
I really wish the US would follow suit; I'm appalled by the amount of single-use plastics I can't avoid bringing home from the grocery store each week, despite having been using reusable shopping bags for years.
While I'm in full support of eliminating plastic bags because of their terrible effect on the environment, I also understand that banning the cheapest way for people to carry their goods home from the market can take an economic toll, especially in third-world and developing countries. I am really excited that our quilting group has teamed up with another of the church's groups, a well-known non-profit called KenyaHELP.
KenyaHELP was originally established to raise money to sponsor school tuition for Kenyan youth. With the advent of the plastic bag ban, however, they've added another facet that provides durable, beautiful and hand-crafted market bags for the Kenyan families they've worked with. Our KenyaHELP ambassadors reached out to the quilting group to create as many market bags as possible.
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| Here are a few of the recipients of my bags! I love how their styles match their picks! |
We were provided simple instructions to create 18" or 21" market bags, although there were no real rules besides being durable, washable and preferably bright and colorful. I really got on a kick and ended up making seven of them right off the bat (plus one from a friend).
One of the ladies in the quilt group had brought in a huge pile of upholstery fabric remnants to play with, from which most of my bags were constructed. I also dug into my own stash for a few... you might recognize this green pixel camo from my Hipster Hound doggy travel bed project.
While the instructions called for basic boxed-corner totes, I opted to add some fun details to many of my bags, especially pockets. I most cases, I just used up whatever fabric I had left, after cutting out the body of the bag and handles, to create the pocket, so some of them are a little oddly shaped (like this umm... wine pocket?).
I also played around with the cuffs of the bags, sometimes putting the them on the outside as a decorative element, or using the fringe-y salvage edges and the "wrong" sides of the upholstery fabric for visual interest. I even used variegated thread on one of the bags for funsies, and it turned out super cute.
I think my favorite bag is this black and white striped one. I pieced the fabric together so the stripes intersected at a 90-degree angle, then placed the pocket where the diagonal line cut through the center. It just makes a really fun optical illusion type thing, and it reminds me of a zebra. I didn't have a lot of this fabric, so I used poly webbing leftover from my Adopt Me dog vests to make the straps. Good grief. Another really old project needing an update. I do finish stuff, I swear!
Anyways... I finally got around to taking pictures of these last week (after they'd been riding around in the back of my Subaru for about six months), and dropped them off at the church to pack up and ship to Africa. It feels good to finally send something off to make a difference, no matter how small.
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