How to carry anything without a bag
January 3, 2008 by Noreen Crone-Findlay
Filed under Creativity, bags & scarf & mittens & hat, crafts
My daughter found a very kewl site!
Furoshiki is the Japanese art of carrying things with knotted fabric. Brilliant!
I am a diehard bag fanatic: I love to design bags, I love to make bags, I collect bags…….
BUT even more important: I’ve been using handmade bags for decades to lug things around and have faithfully carried my bags to grocery stores since I was a teenager, trying to save on plastic and paper consumption.
We also use cloth gift bags for our holiday gifting, as much as possible and re-use gift wrap over and over and over…..
S O when I saw the treehugging, happy dancing site that my daughter found and blogged about, I was just hopping and hooting! I had to give it a try!
I grabbed one of my favorite scarves:
I put a sock-in-progress and a Mighty Mamma spool knitter on it. Small dog, who needs to know everything, volunteered to oversee the process.
Tie two corners together at each side
and either slip your hand into the loops formed by the knots or
Pull one of the loops through the other and carry it like that.
Is this brilliant, or what?
The best part is, you can always carry a lightweight scarf in a pocket of your jacket or purse, and have an instant carry all in seconds. Hurrah! so good for the planet!
I love creative simplicity like this. What a treat!
And, you could take the recycling principle one step farther, and cut squares of fabric from worn out T shirts to make instant carriers. Unlimited possibilities!
hugs all round
Noreen :o)
This is a good idea. I can’t quite see going to the grocery with that, but for taking my crochet project somewhere it would be super. Thanks for the idea.
No snow in Mississippi but definitely cold…Brrr!
That is a great idea! Almost akin to the bags on sticks that the hobos carried their things in!
hugs Karen
Hi Barbara
Actually, if you had a square of fabric that was about 30 - 33 inches square, it would make quite a reasonable tote bag. My scarf in the photos is 22 inches square, so it wouldn’t carry large things, but I was surprised by how much I could get into the 22 inch square ‘instant’ tote!
I’m actually enjoying the snow. When the temps drop tooooooooo much, though, I start to long for Spring!
Happy New Year!
Hi Karen
You know, I had that thought, too! I imagine that people must have done that, if that image made it into our collective imagery somehow!
I love the ‘less is more’ aspect of this!
Noreen, this is just ingenious and I’m so delighted you shared it.
One thought I had on the size, as was asked above, well, if you have an old garment with pretty fabric you could cut as big a square and you need and either run the edges up on a sewing machine or even use fabric glue to hold down smooth edges.
I have gotten rid of a LOT of clothes lately, but I saved the pieces, especially caftans from Bali and other foreign locales that have just stunning fabric, to use in fiber projects. I plan to cut mine in strips to weave, but you could cut a great big square out of something, as big as you want, perhaps a beloved but worn old dress?
I tell you, one of the neatest places to get fabulous fabrics (and probably scarves too) are the vintage clothing shops that have some gorgeous old fancy dresses that they’re selling for almost nothing becase there’s a burn or a tear or something, and there are just yards and yards of material you can use. I have bought vintage velvet, silks, and satins this way and they are enchanting and very little money. Just fyi.
Lookie what you’ve started Noreenie! And give Chloe a hug and a thanks from Auntie Maitri! :o)
Maitri :o), who currently has a snoring pug between her feet…..
Yes indeedie! you can make any size cloth for this!
Today, we were working at Mum’s house and I didn’t have a bag to carry some small stuff home, so I grabbed a teatowel and tied a bunch of knots and Voila! I had an instant tote!
I love the idea of recycling and reclaiming old clothing to make these instant carriers.
Don’t you just love it when you see something that is so amazingly simple and how it just opens floodgates of creativity?