Monday Make-It: No-Sew Teeshirt Bag

I needed a waterproof gym bag for the days when I go swimming, but I don't have any of my sewing stuff around, so I went to my trusty ol' Google and looked for "Teeshirt bag no sew" and this is what I found! It's really super simple. I did this in less than an hour, with blunt scissors; if you took more care and had sharper scissors, I don't think it'd take much more time.

Supplies:

• Old teeshirt
• Roll of duct tape
• Staples / Stapler
• Scissors

1. Turn the shirt inside out
2. Lay the shirt flat on the ground with all the seams lined up, and cut out the neck and arms to look like the top of a bag

These are terrible pictures! I'll do better next time. But check the shape you're going for here.

3. Staple the bottom edge closed all the way across, flip it up once and staple it all the way across again; it might need a little straightening to smooth it out again in between
4. Using short strips of duct tape, reinforce the seam that you just made: stick them to the back of the seam and wrap them around to the front, making sure you have enough vertical length on both sides that it sticks really well.
5. Use longer strips and go all across the shirt, side to side, seam to seam, overlapping the seam a little on each side and overlapping the strips to form a solid sheet.

See how the tape strips overlap a little?

6. Flip the shirt over and do the same to the other side.
7. Reinforce all the seams again.
8. Turn it back rightside out, clean up any edges of tape sticking out, and you have a waterproof bag!

Nice and bag-like!

Benefits:

• Cheap--the shirt was already around, all laundry-stained and the regular duct-tape cost less than $5
• Recycles what would otherwise just get tossed
• Quick, less than an hour
• Waterproof!
• Could easily be prettied up and made with better-colored tape, have more finished edges, could be decorated, etc
• Can be duplicated with every unwanted shirt until you have a bag for everything, in all sizes