Recycling

I finally got around to making some shopping bags to replace the ones my neurotic cat peed on a couple weeks ago.  I know the bags Publix, Target, et al. sell are a mere 99 cents apiece, but I'd also realized right after we bought the ones that got pissed on that those bags are made in China.  Somehow it didn't seem particularly 'green' to buy a reusable bag that had traveled many thousands of miles. So I decided to make my own.  I thought I had some hideous upholstery/drapery fabric hiding in the stash, an inheritance from an aunt who could not resist remnant sale tables, and I was right:

The bag pattern I had said to use a piece of material 48 inches long and 22 inches wide.  This chunk of unbelievably garish fabric was 50 by 48.  Perfect.  Two bags worth.  The only other thing I needed was webbing for the handles.  That I had to actually buy from Hancock Fabrics.  End result:

The webbing was $1.79 per yard, each bag requires 3.25 yards, so instead of spending 99 cents per bag at Publix, I've now spent at least $5.82 per bag, not to mention the externals involved (e.g., the other $30 I spent at Hancock, because being unable to resist remnant tables is apparently a genetic trait) or the opportunity cost of spending an hour sewing when I could have been doing other things.

On the other hand, the sense of moral superiority I may have gained by using not just my own bags, but the Ugliest Shopping Bags on the planet is priceless.

And this is Cleo, who pees in laundry baskets and on area rugs, pillows, and shopping bags when she's feeling stressed out or unhappy: